I also like the idea that languages impact code being maintainable. It's part of why I want to work in more dynamic languages again. My day job is mostly Java.

I also like the idea that languages impact code being maintainable. It's part of why I want to work in more dynamic languages again. My day job is mostly Java. Apart from your macro complaints (though some older devs have expressed similar complaints to me when faced with excited younger devs being a bit irresponsible with the new syntax of Java 8), I see the same things you're criticizing in Java. Java has public/private/protected/package-scope, but you can get around it trivially with reflection. (Java 9 I think "fixed" this, but you can override it at startup time.) Personally I'm in favor of Python's "we're all adults here" philosophy. Proxy patterns are common in large Java code bases, and various other things inspired by aspect-oriented programming. I've never thought to blame the language though because someone forgot to call (or decided not to call, e.g. because it got too smart with a cache) child.method() on the real object it is wrapping.