[pjmlp]

Sure there are, yet none of them were responsible for designing parts of Java architecture, and made the statement we are discussing about.

Had not been for Guy Steele's background, and the context of the talk where he made that statement, I would agree with you.

[lispm]

There were many (ex-)Lispers working on comparable languages: inkl. Java, C#, Dylan, ... The discussion took place on the Little-languages list, where also a bunch of people with actual Lisp experience and general language design&implemetation experience were participating. I'm pretty sure many of them had a good idea where Java was technically positioned in the language landscape between C, C++, Ada, ... ML, Scheme, Lisp, Prolog, Smalltalk, Self, Perl, TCL, ...

Also keep in mind that SUN at that time was aggressively marketing Java as THE new language for system and application development, especially for the enterprise (a main target market for SUN). Though the origins of Java was as a programming language for set-top boxes, when it was still called Oak.

The quote from Guy was kind of an excuse there, for the modest design goals: at least we (-> SUN) dragged C++ developers towards Lisp, even though Smalltalk, Lisp, etc. people themselves were not a target and were not that impressed. Things like Garbage Collection in a language designed to replace C++ in many scenarios was still revolutionary.