[smaudet]

But isn't the great thing about using the JVM supposed to be not using Java?

Or at least the perf advantages it brings. Java has nice stuff today maybe but one could argue that it is primarily defending market share that caused Oracle to move forward with its language updates.

I'm inclined to say the opposite, the more the JVM stays healthy and the stronger the third party ecosystem the more likely it doesn't become a 'dead' language like COBOL or FORTAN (not dead but in terms of marketshare).