I think you hit the nail on the head. Yes, Java is successful, both as a language and as a runtime. Obviously. You can't argue with billions of Android phones.

I think you hit the nail on the head. Yes, Java is successful, both as a language and as a runtime. Obviously. You can't argue with billions of Android phones. Or the (possible?) news that FB has already given up and will be simply using Android for Meta. I don't think a lot of folks here were around at the time to remember that a lot of the early hype around Java and the Web were both about unseating Microsoft. Microsoft has thrived. Sun is in the dustbin of history. Yes, mountains of cool tech came out of Sun, but as a company, as a existential threat to MS? Java didn't deliver. That's not to say it couldn't have, had Sun managed it differently. But if Sun had managed it differently, it probably wouldn't have been the success that it is as a technology.