Ya the 2 packages can do a lot of the same things but do it in very different ways. The java experience will help with python, I would recommend python over Mel for Mayas scripting, since Mel is less powerful and mostly just legacy now. Though Mel is needed if you have to modify existing scripts.
Thanks! Yeah. Maya is so alien to me right now. I'm still getting used to navigating the viewport! Right now I'm in the process of setting up a custom drop down menu which I'm going to assign some mel script buttons inside of that take the selected and apply them to certain layers in my scene. Maya seems to have a lot of…