I am looking for some thoughts/opinions on the merits of these two languages.
I can't really comment having only seriously programmed in Java (I've dabbled with Python) and for the last couple of years I've exclusively used Perl. However, I've "heard good things" about jython. Potentially the best of both worlds? Program in python with access to the extensive Java libraries.
I had a go at Jython as well once. Since Jython is a complete re-write of CPython (what you normally use as python) in Java, you can't use any other libraries than the ones Jython provides. No SciPy or NumPy... And JNumeric(al) seems to be dead (and broken) since 2002... Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ +64 (7) 838-4466 Ext. 5174