[fecak]

I wouldn't say that Java is extremely popular by any stretch. It's ubiquitous, but people aren't falling over themselves to become Java programmers anymore. I'd say Java is much less popular than it used to be (and I've run a Java Users' Group for 13 years). The JVM is still popular, but Java the language's popularity is arguably at a low point.

[res0nat0r]

I don't think he means java is popular in the "cool" sense. He means it is popular because it is so widely deployed and still in use everywhere.

[fecak]

I agree that Java is widely adopted (thus my 'ubiquitous' comment). The fact that the commenter followed-up immediately with "some of its most painful points have been addressed in Java 8" led me to believe it was referring to being liked and not necessarily to being adopted.

[pron]

I meant adoption, but mentioned that some of the issues that make it less well liked are being addressed.

I think it possible (though far from inevitable) that another JVM language will achieve dominance on the JVM, and it is very possible that Java will fall below the 60% or even 50% on the JVM (with the rest being taken by several, though not one dominant, languages). But this is still some years in the future.

[fecak]

That seems to be a pretty popular opinion among the Java pros that I know. Some of the early Scala adopters seemed to believe that, and many are likely still of that opinion. It may take years for an alternative JVM language to be dominant in terms of overall code, but might not be quite as far off when using a metric such as 'new projects'.

[m0skit0]

Java at corporation level is extremely popular.