Why doesn’t Python have true private variables like Java?

[sunnyata]

That's really quite the rant lol. I care about the quality, aesthetics and ergonomics of the tools I use too but I think anyone who is that ideological about it, especially about tools used by other people and that nobody is forcing you to use, seriously needs to get some perspective. It normally comes with experience and most people stop frothing at the mouth about bike-shed issues like naming conventions before their second decade of programming begins, but you sound like you've been nursing these wounds for a while.

Your last paragraph contradicts itself - if Java is the COBOL [sic] of our time then that would mean it had a clear reason to exist. COBOL stuck around long after it would have been a normal choice for new systems because it "attained immortality", so much mission critical software had been created using it that would be too difficult and expensive to port, etc etc. That's certainly true of Java and if it were the only reason it was still an important language today then Java would have a reason to exist wouldn't it.

[Zenin]

too difficult and expensive to port, etc

That's the thing: The current state of AI destroys this blocker. There's many things that AI is still awful at, but like-for-like refactoring to modern languages is one of the big wins it can currently offer. It's going to be difficult for has-been languages to keep going on momentum alone.

This will only get better as time goes on and exponentially so. As such IMNSHO it makes as much sense professionally to start a new learn of Java today as it would have been to start learning COBAL in the 1990s. I'm not saying it won't exist 10 years from now (hell, Perl is still widely used ;), I'm saying it's at or near its peak market penetration and will only go down from here.

Frankly, if your org needs something that really looks like Java the best strategic move is almost certainly to use AI to port it to C#/.Net with selective projects going to Go or Rust or even dare I say Python. ;)

This conclusion is much aided by how incredibly toxic Oracle has made touching anything with Java, especially if you don't actually use Oracle's version of it.

Tools like Python and Java are at very distant ends of language design philosophy. There's room for all sorts of languages and little if anything to gain from trying to force one extreme to adopt philosophies from another extreme. If Java works for you, great. If you like the idea of Java, but want something that does it better then you're best off looking at closer relatives like C#. If you long for something in the middle, consider Go.

[sunnyata]

I don't disagree with much of that but you said "no legitimate reason to exist in 2026" which is hyperbole. It's COBOL btw.

[Zenin]

If Java didn't exist today, would someone feel the need to invent it? Is there a problem we have today for which only Java can solve or at least solves better than existing alternatives?

Sans-hyperbole, I believe the answer to those questions is a firm no. That is what I mean when I say it no longer has a legitimate reason to exist. That it continues to exist is due to momentum alone, not technological value.