Java was truly ahead of its time in that vision. Its promise was initially its portability, and it always had a network-friendly orientation. But the plethora

Java was truly ahead of its time in that vision. Its promise was initially its portability, and it always had a network-friendly orientation. But the plethora of interconnected devices that we have and envision today simply didn't exist at that time. If Java hadn't hung in there, we'd be talking about another, more recently created language designed for this purpose.