[jschwartzi]

If I'm writing software for an MCU I'm going to want something that can directly address and manipulate memory, which excludes interpreted languages and things like Java.

For example if you look at the Android platform sources you'll see that all the code which supports hardware abstraction is written in C/C++ and then the API is made accessible through JNI.

This is somewhat like how homes typically have foundations built of concrete, on which wood is layered and assembled to construct boxes that people can put their stuff in.