"Private" methods, for example, are just marked with _ or __ in front as a mere suggestion…

That's actually a "borrow word." :P

You're quite right, nearly no one is enthusiastic about Java. Perl has "won" happiest users surveys and non-scientific google mining a couple of times.

…as a medium of expression, you could do a lot better. Of all the great programmers I can think of, I know of only one who would voluntarily program in Java. And of all the great programmers I can think of who don't work for Sun, on Java, I know of zero. –Great Hackers

Plenty more gems in that including props for Perl and Python.