Earlier quoted context omitted.
This! I really don't know why those comparing languages fail to recognize that a language's success has got much to do with the "ecosystem" as well; tool-set, libraries and so on.
The main reason I don't use Java is because of the (de-facto) tooling - maven in particular is completely opaque to me and seems very resistant to experimenting to figure out how it works (though I am having to work with deeply nested poms and custom plugins). I've used build/release management/dep management tools from/like go, python, ruby, node, erlang, make, autotools and cmake and I've never before had to read a…
maven is fine if you want to get started and get a deployment going. But I agree with you, if your requirements are even slightly off maven's defaults (e.g., different build directory) then you will be in loads of pain.