First off, even removing line breaks it is still verbose. I can't think of another language that's even close. Even C++ would give you a shorter version.

Far more important though is how much stuff is in that one line of code that needs to be understood in order for what you are typing to be more than just arcane magic words. Pedagogically speaking that is an awful way to get started, so I think the claim that that is not a great way to teach kids is pretty valid.

To be fair I fully agree that 'Hello world' is not a good way to assess the worth of a language in general, but the ease of getting started is a valid concern when using a language to introduce programming