Syntactically, Python code looks like executable pseudo code. Program development using Python is 5-10 times faster than using C/C++, and 3-5 times faster than using Java. In many cases, a prototype of an application can be written in Python without writing any C/C++/Java code. More on softwareengineering.stackexchange.com

Python might be the easiest to start with. And it is quite useful under Linux to automate certain things for example. More on reddit.com

Since you have used MATLAB and R, I would suggest Python. Python has data visualization libraries, numerical libraries, etc. So if your background is more into data related stuff, Python has stuff aimed at that community (why Python was picked is unclear, because it could have been Ruby). But Python can be used to make web applications, games (maybe not like C# or C++). It has object oriented features, etc. The main complaint is that it's slow compared, say, C++. Try not to pigeonhole languages for one purpose. C# was developed because Microsoft was told to stop their work on Java, so they built a Java clone. They didn't think "Oh, this is just like Java, so we shouldn't bother creating this language". People often write languages because this feature or that feature annoys them, and they want to "fix" it with something better. Arguably, Java was created because people thought C++ was too complex and that maybe it was time for a non-functional programming language to use a garbage collector. They went through features they felt were creating complications in C++ (multiple inheritance, pass-by-value, memory allocation, etc) and cleaned it up (although Java is a pretty verbose language). It's just like if you wanted to buy a Honda vs a Toyota. These car manufacturers don't decide to create vehicles that fulfill a niche. To some extent, that can be true of languages. Even the idea of a programmer sitting down to do a project and "picking an appropriate" language doesn't always happen. If your group is good with Python, then they might not bother with doing the code in Java or C++. With whatever limitations a language has, familiarity with how it works is often more important. Also, although people love languages, there's more to programming than learning a language. More on reddit.com

Java is not faster, just the compiler is smarter. If your code looks something like: var i = 0 while i < 10_000_000_000: i += 1 print(i) It should get optimized to something like: print(10_000_000_000) at least a proper C++ compiler with release settings should do it too, if i remember correct it's called loop unrolling More on reddit.com