Having learned Java in high school and later taught Java, Python and C++ to high-schoolers, things have improved greatly in Java. The days of memorizing the ent

Having learned Java in high school and later taught Java, Python and C++ to high-schoolers, things have improved greatly in Java. The days of memorizing the entire BufferedReader try-catch snippet are over. The new file and stream APIs are almost as clean as in Python and making GUIs (Swing for basic and JavaFX for advanced) is even easier than Tk in Python. For me, it boils down to a choice between typed and "non-typed" languages, where the best typed option is Java and the best "non-typed" are Python or maybe JavaScript (NodeJS). Everything else is some combination of not mainstream enough, not powerful enough out of the box or requires too much knowledge to get started. Java and Python read like English, have most of what you'll need included and are very useful languages for students to get their first internships/summer jobs working with.