If you must know the reason behind that statement, was due to the fact at where I work we use jython, java and python extensively. When I first got there I was rapid prototyping applications for the end user, based on some data that had been structured in Java. While this was available through API I had no inner understanding the objects that I was passing around in python, which you can get away with in python very easy. Which is why I think its bad to get into the habit for beginners. Understood that clutter is a bit extraneous but at the same time necessary, or least until we all move towards simpler languages like python. :)