[hinkley]

Java was in the right place at the right time have a Hype Cycle that aligned with availability of the internet and search engines.

If you were graduating and thinking MFC or Java you just had to look at the price of the bookshelf of books required to get anywhere with the former and have some second thoughts.

[pjmlp]

Depends, if you wanted to do Swing apps that didn't suck, the books for Java were exactly the same as for MFC.

It is quite telling how Swing got its fame.