Java is not only a language for writing pretty applets (which aren't the same as full applications which run from the CLI) or just for platform independence. It is a language which has many good security features, makes coding things such as networking much easier, has a vast amount of existing code and is a language which is just generally safer to program in and more object-oriented. If there weren't other benefits to coding Java programs, why would compilers such as GCJ exist for compiling Java programs to native code? Also, the speed problems with Java are now far less as compiling on demand becomes more common in Java runtimes. Whereas a C program can cause a segfault in about five lines, major problems with Java are more likely to be due to the runtime, which can even be eliminated. Also, there is no reason that just because Mozilla is slow (mainly because the code has to do a lot of layering to make the platform-independence work) doesn't mean that a port has to be -- a port would take substantial work and even though the ideas are the same, the finished product won't include the same code and so doesn't have to be as slow!!!
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Java is not only a language for writing pretty
applets (which aren't the same as full applications
which run from the CLI) or just for platform independence. It is a language which has many good security features, makes coding things such as networking much easier, has a vast amount of existing code and is a language which is just generally safer to program in and more object-oriented. If there weren't other benefits to coding Java programs, why would compilers such as GCJ exist for compiling Java programs to native code? Also, the speed problems with Java are now far less as compiling on demand becomes more common in Java runtimes. Whereas a C program can cause a segfault in about five lines, major problems with Java are more likely to be due to the runtime, which can even be eliminated. Also, there is no reason that just because Mozilla is slow (mainly because the code has to do a lot of layering to make the platform-independence work) doesn't mean that a port has to be -- a port would take substantial work and even though the ideas are the same, the finished product won't include the same code and so doesn't have to be as slow!!!