Java is a powerful tool. Not as powerful as a C/C++ tool could be, but MUCH easier to use and faster to develop with. Easier to troubleshoot, etc..
I learned programming long before Java was an option. When Java first became available I was less than interested because of how slow it was. Over the years they have done a good job at improving its performance. PC speeds have largely made the differences in many cases miniscule, and a little known fact is that for some operations Java has actually exceeded the performance of C... I know many people out there will try to argue but scientific tests and evaluation have been done with each new version available and in some areas, as of Java 1.5, Java surpassed C... This is very positive news...
In any case, I learned Java, grudgingly, because even then I could see some of the benefits it could potentially yield. Since I knew C/C++ it was an easy thing to learn Java, but I had to "unlearn" a few things which are habit for C programmers but which don't apply to Java.
I honestly believe that it is the competition between the programming languages that has led all of them, C vs C++ vs Java vs PHP vs ETC. to improve not just their performance but also their usability. Arrays that grow dynamically, etc. were always a problem for C/C++ and Java too, but in the drive to be better, they created Vectors, Lists, etc. in standard libraries, which were often very similar across languages... The real winner becomes the programer who no longer has to custom code as many storage classes, etc. as he used to...
Java was built to use UTF-8, which I love because I develop system for international use and C/C++ were never quite so easy. However, to maintain compatibility with C/C++ based systems the I/O routines in Java were defaulted to ASCII (Latin-1), thus they are read as Latin-1 streams but then converted to UTF-8 for storage and converted back on output... SO, people like me have to specifically indicate when we want the I/O to be read as UTF-8, which means no translation is needed... I wish Java had not done that, they should have forced others to justify NOT using internationalizable code instead.
Anyway, Java still lacks some of the fine control and poower of C/C++ but for most people's requirements it is more than sufficient.
In fact, I have spent many years working in the enterprise software industry and the trend globally is moving to "thin client" interfaces. Corporations don't want the expense of installing and maintaining software on thousands of PC enterprise wide... They want to use the tools already available on the PC's, i.e. the browser, MS Office, Outlook, etc. to do the job...
A thin client is basically a network based application that uses a browser or some integration technology to avoid installing any client software in each machine. Web Deployment is a half-way measure some will accept, but most want IE/FF available applications.
This means that Java has become the platform of demand... Java, Javascript, CSS and XML are the skills you need to become a high valued, high paid asset...
Due the development costs in the West, many companies are moving to "off-shore" developers. Myself included. I manage a team of off-shre developers, NOT from India, with great skill in PHP and Java. My local assets design the systems with the customers and assist in the key development processes, but the off-shore developers do much of the work. This requires technically skilled managers. Failure to manage correctly has caused many issues for companies trying to do this and makes the difference between success and failure for them.
I won't tell you what country my developers are in... lets just say they are even cheaper than India, better quality and I don't want any competition as long as the rest of the world is focused on India I will have the advantage...
Indian developers are NOT known for quality though, they are also NOT known for speed, so you save on hourly rates, but may take longer to code. I have had similar experience with Japanese developers... The Japanese deveopers are not as cheap, but they are better quality, in general, then the Indian developers, but Japanese developers have typically takes 3 times as long to develop as Indian developers who typically take longer than Western developers...
I have gone off subject a bit, but the point is, if you are looking for a stable career, high pay, etc. in the development world, learn to do the system designs and management of the off-shore resources... Make sure your technical abilities include Java, Javascript, CSS and XML. Make sure you study BUSINESS... After all the people you will need to tallk to in order to design the systems will speak in business terms, not technical ones, your job then will be to translate those terms into technical designs specific enough for the developers, who usually don't know crap about business, to build the solution right....
Peace,
