Java Java is a language that was originally created to be used to program toasters, microwave ovens, and other embedded systems. I'm not particularly a firm believer in Java. Actually, I think that to this point most of what has been said about it has been marketing droid snake-oil. LISP systems have been dynamically allocating memory for decades, not to mention Scheme or other newer variants. Simula introduced object-oriented programming in the 1960s, long before C was a popular language.
Quite annoying is the fool idea many seem to have of putting it into their operating system kernel.
It's much safer if it stays compartmentalized as a user-level process, thank you very much, particularly if the plan is to use it to service mobile agents. The Java interpreter itself does not reside in the kernel. It seems fairly likely that Sun might mount legal challenges to anyone attempting to implement a system interoperable with JDK 1.2 as free software. Despite the presence of some such, that would be an unwarranted and unwise assumption. The lack of widespread deployment of applications written in Java as part of all Linux distributions is a natural outcome of the tight licensing restrictions applied to the Java-related technologies from Sun, IBM, and others.