[thrower123]

My hypotheses is that C# would never have become as popular as it became if Java hadn't had the long stall between 1.6 and 7[1]. That long, long pause provided a window, and under the stewardship of the vampires at Oracle there is not the kind of direction to push things forward that C# has had.

[1] Four and a half years! Nowadays it seems like Angular and React are pushing major versions every four and a half minutes.

[wvenable]

I'm not sure Java would have changed at all if it wasn't for C#. From the start, Java was never particularly quick to get new features or break any sort of compatibility.