Do I really need to learn Java?

[Hanna Joo]

Hi, I am a newbie python programmer who ended up in programming without much
previous experience in this field. My team wrote a small system in python
(not understanding objects at all - it is horrible with globals everywhere
^__^ ) which works quite well. It was an experimental project and many will
cringe if they see the program.

After this project, I studied python more in depth, and started writing
simple programs using OOP concepts. Then a friend of mine studying CS
suggested that I study Java instead of "not well designed (!!!!)" python to
master the concept of OOP. I only had a few sessions with her, but to me,
Java's sintax is just like C (never liked C) and is not as flexible as
python. (Hate declarations, hate having to have classes, hate compiling..)
As I mentioned earlier, we could come up with a small POS system generator
using Python procedural style (I know, disgusting, but point is that it was
possible).

I don't know much about languages to discuss their merits in depth, but to
me, a newbie, python offers all that I need. Although I find Java and C
interesting, I am not sure whether they do what I cannot do in python. I
would love to learn other languages to broaden my horizon, I would like a
language as clean and flexible as python (strong bias here as I know only
python well)

Can somebody explain what the advantages/disadvantages of using Java (or
C++) compared to python? And whether I will have to use Java in certain
situations?

Hanna