So the only reason why Java is so 'big', 'fancy' and has lots and lots of fans... is because it's not dependant on the OS? If you can't compile it into an EXE or anything... how on earth do you market such programs? My main experience with Java is that my friends give me links that lead to these irritating little immature Java scripts.... They quite frankly suck. And you have no warning what so ever... From what I've seen... Java is more for little annoying 10 year old programmers who find the opening and closing of a CDROM hilarous. But then there's also good Java... I've played a nice 3D aircraft game, with great music... and Chat applets are handy as well... But there's also places like Outwar... that use this to actually copy their popups onto your computer... resulting in getting an add every 30 seconds!!
Not even adaware programs can stop that crap.. you've gotta find and delete 'Winservn' or something.

This is just my opinion and 'the facts' of this 'ever so helpful' not dependant on OS language.