With comments about Java being the most controversial in the conversation about programming languages. It would be great to hear from all those who have an opinion on the technology.

For me I still have a question mark over what future the platform can be expected to enjoy. Sun have put an astonishing amount of marketing muscle behind it, for example, posting free DVDs of the language to anybody who wants a hard-copy. This leaves me wondering if it will continue to thrive once the commercial budget reaches its limit, and also, how much of the early adopters are taking it up as an insurance policy against future trends rather than as a secure long-term investment. In other words, how much of Java's current success is owed to marketing hype and neophytes? Will the upward trend continue once the press furore is over?

Meanwhile, anybody adopting Java will not be able to ignore the attractions of its developmental neighbours, Ruby, C++ and C# on .NET, the latter being the quite deliberate Java foil from Microsoft.

There is much Java development today in the form of non-commercial indie products from hobby developers. Few serious game projects are written in Java, few serious applications, except when within Java's specialist environment, which is heavily internet dependant software, Azureus http://azureus.sourceforge.net/ being perhaps todays most poignant example.

The question is though, where do You see Java five years from now?

Java isnt going to fall down so easily. Since now its open source, more people would fall into take it a new level. More and more technologies would be derived form it like Ajax, etc.

Personally I think .NET has more potential than Java these days. Java is like a very old, very fat horse that feels comfortable but doesn't really ride the countryside when you need it to.