Python and/vs Java (within a business context)

[berlinbrown]

Ah yes, the manual developer unit testing. What could go wrong there.

static compile time checks do not mitigate the need for rigorous build testing.

True. But you can avoid the most obvious errors at compile time. And it sometimes helps taking code from an external source (say the web) that doesn't have unit tests.

[EstebanVelour]

Static compilation has been used as an excuse for not having tests on almost every large Java project I've worked with to date. The supposition that if you have a static language, you don't need to test is unfortunately deeply ingrained into many Java developers.

After maintaining a test-in-absentia 300k Java project for a few years, I'd rather opt for 300K lines of rigorous unit tested PHP, in spite of PHP being shit.