[mercurial]

I guess it depends in what context you're looking at it. What makes Java so successful is its simplicity. You can get fairly quickly up to speed on it, and you can have junior coders on it producing code quickly without shooting themselves in the foot too much or spending a couple of hours trying to find out how to update a tree efficiently.

On the other hand, as a hobbyist, it's absolutely fantastic.

[Peaker]

In the case of Java, the simplicity of language leads to complexity of programs.

The extra difficult-to-learn parts of Haskell makes for programs that are more practical, shorter and easier to work with.

There's a trade-off between simplicity and power - and we don't really want to maximize simplicity only. And if we did, Java would not be a good candidate either.

[mercurial]

But many dev shops just want a pool of cheap labour and care little about robustness. And the abundance of cheap labor is a function of both learning curve and critical mass.

I gather this is not a design goal of a language with "avoid success at all costs" as an unofficial motto