[mftb]

Because at the time it was pretty clear.

'At that stage, C and C++ "absolutely owned the universe"' - https://www.zdnet.com/article/programming-languages-java-fou...

They took a lot of inspiration from C/C++'s syntax and seemed to be pretty concerned with improving memory management, security and developer velocity.

[futharkshill]

Another programming language being popular by no means mean that it is a derived language of any sort. Any development is of course retrospective, but it is sorta like saying all music is descendant from pop.

[laumars]

I understand the point you’re trying to make but writing music is a creative process whereas marketing programming languages isn’t.

I was around at the time and C++ was trendy so Sun were marketing it as the future for C++ developers. It was definitely influenced by what was in vogue at the time even if it doesn’t adopt all of the traits of C++.

I remember this because I wasn’t a fan of C++ back then as I’d come from the ALGOL family of languages so found C-style syntax a little alien (and tbh I still don’t like C++ now even though I’ve since warmed to C’s syntax) so it took me years before I warmed to Java.

[AnimalMuppet]

Define "derived".

In particular, if Java kept (almost?) all the keywords, and the operators, and the statement terminators, and the block delimiters, and the same approach to object-oriented... how is it not derived from C++?