[wellpast]

Android -> Java? Java dominated well before mobile.

Also JVM languages are surging even though none have a specific killer app.

But Clojure is still niche. And is the most powerful/simple of them all. I think there’s something else going on, too much power & simplicity in a language doesn’t yield to mass appeal - why?

[Izkata]

Java's big thing was "same code, run everywhere". Even before Android, apps and games on my 2002 flip-phone were written in Java Micro Edition.

[sgt101]

Also Java is not c++, I was a c++ programmer in 1994, in 1996 I was a Java programmer. I cannot explain how much my quality of life had changed. I know that c++ isn't the way it was then, now, but holy heaven, working with it then was like shaving with a hover mower.

[Teckla]

Java had a lot of "big things" going for it:

1. Write Once, Run Anywhere

2. GUI in the standard library

3. Way less complex than hyper-complex C++

4. Garbage collection

5. Memory safety

6. Applets that ran in the web browser

7. Comprehensive standard library

8. Free compiler and JVM for all major (at the time) operating systems

Some of these things have ultimately not worked out, but at the time, all of the aforementioned features helped propel Java to huge success.

[fnord77]

this was a huge deal sometime back.

the fact you could get roughly the same order of magnitude performance as C in an environment that didn't need tons if #ifdefs to work on various platforms was amazing.