While at your workplace you may not have a choice in the matter, the great thing about the growing poliferation of web-based apps is it doesn't technically matter what language the application is coded in. Given a common set of HTML templates, an app written with Java Servlets could look exactly like, and even interoperate with, a Perl CGI. (Now now, don't attack the choices. It was just an example.)

I guess what I'm trying to say is the idea of being able to code professionally in the language of your choice is not exactly "romantic"... it's very plausible.