[marcosdumay]

> why most of us use Java at all

Java was the first popular language to push static analysis for correctness. It was the "if it compiles, it runs" language of its day, what meant that managers could hire a couple of bad developers by mistake and it wouldn't destroy the entire team's productivity.

I'm not sure that position lasted for even 5 years. But it had a very unique and relevant value proposition at the time.

[javcasas]

OCaml would like to have a word with you. In 2005 it already had better static analysis and correctness on object oriented stuff than what Java struggles to approach today.

But Java has better marketing.

[marcosdumay]

Java is from 1996...

It got really useful by 1998.

[javcasas]

OCaml is also from 1996. And I say 2005 because that's when I started using it, not when it started being useful.

By that time it supported parametric generics, multiple inheritance, named parameters, optionals instead of nulls everywhere, compile to machine code and quite a few extra things that I couldn't understand at the time.