For me the choice is really about the JVM, rather than going with Microsoft and .NET. I work mostly in Clojure, which runs on the JVM. But I have the whole univ

For me the choice is really about the JVM, rather than going with Microsoft and .NET. I work mostly in Clojure, which runs on the JVM. But I have the whole universe of Java libraries available to me. Whatever flavor of language you are into, you will find something that runs on the JVM. The competition includes languages like Rust, Go, Haskell or Erlang. Most of these lack the languages that you'll find on the JVM, so it really is a question of what you are trying to do. Go is certainly interesting in some places, especially if you want a binary that is entirely self sufficient. Each of these languages is interesting, though of course one has to wonder about hiring, whereas finding developers who've worked on the JVM is easy enough.