I was just wondering what language would be a good choice for developing a game server to support a large (thousands) number of users? I dabbled in python, but realized that it would just be too much trouble since it doesn't spawn threads across cores (meaning an 8 core server=1 core server). I also didn't really like the language (that "self" stuff grossed me out).
I know that C++ is the language for the job in terms of performance, but I hate it. I don't want to deal with its sloppy syntax and I like my hand to be held by managed languages. This brings me to C# and Java, but I am open to other languages. I love the simplicity of .NET, but I was wondering if, speed wise, this would be good for the job. Keep in mind since this will be deployed on a Linux server, it would be running on the Mono framework - not sure if that matters. I know that Java is syntax-wise very similar to .Net, but my experience with it is limited. Are there any frameworks out there for it or anthing to ease in the development?
Please help me and my picky self arrive on a solution.
UPDATE: I didn't mean to sound so picky, and I really don't think I was. The only language I really excluded was C++, Python I don't like because of the scalability problem. I know that there are ways of communicating between processes, but if I have an 8 core server, why should I need to make 8 processes? Is there a more elegant solution?
You could as well use Java and compile the code using GCC to a native executable.
That way you don't get the performance hit of the bytecode engine (Yes, I know - Java out of the box is as fast as C++. It must be just me who always measures a factor 5 performance difference). The drawback is that the GCC Java-frontend does not support all of the Java 1.6 language features. 
Another choice would be to use your language of choice, get the code working first and then move the performance critical stuff into native code. Nearly all languages support binding to compiled libraries.
That does not solve your "python does not multithread well"-problem, but it gives you more choices.
Good language to develop a game server in?