Java isn't a horrible language it's a somewhat mediocre language. It's a lowest common denominator. It has a couple of very good free cross-platform ide's. I

Java isn't a horrible language it's a somewhat mediocre language. It's a lowest common denominator. It has a couple of very good free cross-platform ide's. It's write once -run everywhere to a certain extent. While java gui's may be a bit ugly they let you run self contained apps with no dependencies except for the jvm(installed on more the 1/2 of all pcs). The vm (at least the main sun/oracle hotspot / openjdk) has a world class jit and gc.