Much depends on the Java. Having spent a lot of time on personal projects using the language, it doesn't deserve its reputation -- Java may 'require' an IDE to

Much depends on the Java. Having spent a lot of time on personal projects using the language, it doesn't deserve its reputation -- Java may 'require' an IDE to avoid spending too much time on boilerplate, but modern Java is a good language and the programming experience once you do have that IDE is one of the best, most effective I know. At the same time, it's absolutely possible for codebases to become "enterprisey" to the point where even the tiniest change takes weeks. Some of the libraries out there use absolutely horrifying patterns. If you're just coding for yourself, you can avoid those. In a company maybe not so much, and even though the company would be better off avoiding them, maybe they have old code remaining from when such things were considered good.