I agree, there is a middle ground and it is worth looking at that. Worked a lot with Java, but also dynamic languages (lots of Python, but also Smalltalk and R

I agree, there is a middle ground and it is worth looking at that. Worked a lot with Java, but also dynamic languages (lots of Python, but also Smalltalk and Ruby). My experience was similar: I was missing something on either side. Currently I like Scala a lot, and it has a console as well as great collections.