Well, agree to disagree :) I've used a fair number of languages, and don't really understand the java hate. There's far uglier languages to look at. But then I love writing in assembly - which some feel overwhelmed with.

Personally it seems like some programmers at some point dislike being restrained by anything and become slightly high and mighty about the whole subject - the whole "Unless you use lisp, you can't understand why lisp is the best language" BS.

Why is "var X"-type syntax better? Why does that create better code :/ Sorry, I don't buy it. "var X" would be less precise, and less useful than specifying the explicit type you want.

FWIW, I just checked for fun my own comet server written in Java against tornado (Python). Very similar functionality, except the Java one is a smaller codebase. It's as verbose as you want it to be.