[refocus]

I've been programming for 10 years and have used a wide variety of languages. Lisp, Scala, Clojure, Python, Java, C++, C, Ocaml, Haskell, and Go, plus a variety of math/statistical langauges.

Java/C++ development just isn't fun. It takes way too long to accomplish simple things. In fact, the process sucks all the fun out of it. The boilerplate is monstrous, the code looks like someone else wrote it, and there isn't much interactivity to the process since the Java Way is to write and tinker with monolithic, huge systems rather than create new things that can do something useful within an afternoon.

ETA: All languages have flaws but it's still fun to program in, e.g., Python or Scala. The flaws of these languages usually manifest in low-impact "well shit, that's annoying" irritations, not systemic constantly-grinding drags on productivity that will never go away.

[SamReidHughes]

It seems to me like getting a job using Python or Scala would be a much better option then.