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The question was whether to use Java vs something else for a web app.

I was a Common Lisp hacker, Python fan, Scheme enthusiast, FP in general kind of guy.

And yet I still chose Java for our group over PHP, over Perl, over Python/Lisp/Scheme, ASP, etc.

This was back pre-WARs. We had Servlets and crude JSPs. Java 1.2.

And I still picked Java.

Why?

Servlet API. That bone headed, brain dead Java web API.

What's so special about the Servlet API? Nothing. Well, one thing. Stateful on a single server. That was nice.

Also, it was all Java. JSPs were Java, Servlets were Java, generic service code was Java, head to toe it was all Java. I could easily see if we picked something like ASP (no .NET at the time), we'd have had to write code in C++ and VB. I didn't want VB and C++ coders handwaving each other off because "they didn't know C++/VB". Can't say that when it's all Java.

Oh, and one other thing. Minor thing, but still.

At the time, again, this is early, there were already 4 or 5 implementations of the Servlet API available. Tomcat, JRun, Netscape, others.

That was the kicker.

The fact that we had a standard API, and several supporting implementations, from different vendors, was key. Same with JDBC. Even in the short term of that project we went from Solaris/Oracle to NT/SQL Server, and then back (the CTO was fired), from Tomcat to Netscape to JRun.

We never needed to run another JVM, but even then we had IBM available as an alternative to Suns.

Nothing else offered that flexibility. Nothing else today offers that flexibility. We have JVMs on everything from Gumstix to 128 CPU beasts, several implementations of the major infrastructure, both free and pay (sometime even both), from a wide array of vendors and projects. Java along with MS is driving the SOAP standards for interoperability, and keeping up with the Joneses with REST frameworks and capability, until JAX-WS releases and adopts it.

Several commercial JVMs, just on the x86, plus several others on other architectures.

It's fast, it's cross platform, it's portable.

JRuby is clocking faster than CRuby, it implements several scripting languages for the "lighter better faster" crowds. Java even has PHP! The Great Satan itself! Now running in a JVM near you.

Just like there's a huge amount of software that targets the Unix runtime, a huge amount that targets the Windows runtime, we have a huge amount that targets the Java runtime -- which happens to run everywhere.

The world keeps shifting around it, but Java keeps up.

It's biggest threat right now is JavaScript, but it will run that too...