[code-dog]

Makes sense - the JVM is fast and stable. It comes with a huge array of tooling and its own built in debugging system. It is well supported and cross platform. Why would you not want to take advantage of all that good stuff?

[lazyjones]

Doesn't make that much sense to me - the JVM is complex and has disadvantages (slow startup times etc.), so if you can compile PHP to native code, why compile to interpreted/JIT-compiled code instead? You're just wasting cycles again.

The advantages of the Java ecosystem can be accessed through Thrift if necessary, but the C/C++ world is far from being dead.

It might be interesting for the security and debugging aspects of the JVM, but that's a bit meagre for such an effort.

[taligent]

And some people might not like to hear it but Oracle has really provided a new injection of excitement in the JVM with their G1 GC and JRockit additions.

And with clarity around the future roadmap and the ever growing list of non-Java languages the platform has never looked better IMHO.

[code-dog]

Oracle moving on from the 1.6 doldrums was a huge plus for Java and the JVM. Now the buzz is around 1.8 with lambdas and enhancements to performance of invoke dynamic.

[taligent]

And what's great is that since Apple has handed over responsibility of OSX Java over to Oracle it means everyone can start to use the 1.8 features.

Feels like everyone has been stuck on 1.5/1.6 for too long.

[nahname]

It is a static language after all. </joke>