Python is much older than Java, and Java is a big OO-first language. It's a bit like saying Python doesn't do functional as well as Erlang.
Python is much older than Java, and Java is a big OO-first language. It's a bit like saying Python doesn't do functional as well as Erlang.
Much older? Wikipedia says[^1][^2] java appeared in 1995 (started in 1991), while python appeared in 1991 (started in late 1980s). 4 years doesn't seem too far apart, considering both language are >30 years old now.
[^1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Python_(programming_language)
[^2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_(programming_language)
Not only that, but Python had the benefit of doing a very painful break in version 3 (2008), when they had the option to cleaned up almost anything they wanted.
(Some changes in Python 3 I can recall: bytes/str/unicode being the biggest one; fixing mutable variables in nested functions; changing some obscure behavior in class hierarchies and overload resolution; changing things like range() and map() to lazy evaluation.)
For better or for worse, Java has maintained very good (not perfect) compatibility throughout, even with painful changes like generics in 1.5, lambdas in 8, modules in 9, eventual removal of applets and SecurityManager, etc. This also contrasts with C#/.NET, which I think had some breaking changes over the decades.