>But if Java was so unsuitable for such a wide range of tasks, what made us think it was a good general purpose language? Other competing languages you would u

>But if Java was so unsuitable for such a wide range of tasks, what made us think it was a good general purpose language? Other competing languages you would use today didn't exist, and C++98 was a pain in the ass. The selling point back then was Java was C++98 with all of the difficult parts stripped out, and with good tooling and IDE support. Back then people flocked to Java like some sort of oasis. Today, even modern C++ is better in most ways.