He wouldn't because Java gets in your way much more than Python does. A better language needs to offer these things AND be a better language.

Agreed that Java is an obnoxious language. I think originally the grandparent and I were talking about Clojure, which uses the Java library ecosystem, and I started talking about Java libs.

Clojure is certainly the context I'd use Java's machine learning libraries in.

Well then, instead of putting words in his mouth like "exactly the same", go down his list.

> - Is there a mature tensor/multidimensional array library in Clojure? Is there a Dataframe library?

Is there one in Java? If so, what?

And so on with his other items. It doesn't have to be exactly the same (offering him the benefit of the doubt), but it has to offer substantially the same functionality with substantially the same performance. So, you want to use Java libraries from Clojure? Go for it. Where are the things he needs?

Not sure what they cover, but there are surely libraries available,

https://deeplearning4j.org/

https://github.com/originrose/cortex

http://www.onyxplatform.org/

https://neanderthal.uncomplicate.org/

https://clojurecuda.uncomplicate.org/

https://clojurecl.uncomplicate.org/

https://github.com/uncomplicate/bayadera

https://devblogs.nvidia.com/grcuda-a-polyglot-language-bindi...

Also since Pytorch 1.4 there is initial support for Java, built on top of the new pure C++ API.

The ceremony to start using Java is significantly worse than Python or Clojure.

Science is about functions, not objects, a language that requires all functions to be associated with an object is a non-starter.