I can't back up your experience, but it sounds reasonable. That suggests that Python is more orthogonal to Java than Ruby is (er, before I trigger a deep langu

I can't back up your experience, but it sounds reasonable. That suggests that Python is more orthogonal to Java than Ruby is (er, before I trigger a deep language discussion, I mean much more generally - in terms of application, libraries, userbase, available documentation, examples, etc) - again, it's not something I have hard analysis on, but something I can probably believe anecdotally... So if you're looking for a "partner" language, then all that would suggest that Python might be a good option (i.e. less overlap == more complimentary). ... That's some pretty rough logic, but maybe something to start with.