> It was ridiculous. They seriously wanted to rewrite everything in Java, including office and web browsers.
There's another perspective. Many people were looking for something like Java well before it was released: VM-based, portable, modern object-orientation features, etc.
Case in point: databases. In the early 1990s I worked on a project at Sybase that attempted to rewrite SQL Server from the ground up to bring in object [relational] support. The team focused on VM-based languages as a foundation, which were an area of active academic research at the time. Built-in object support, portability, and ability to support code generation for queries were among the attractions. The project started with Smalltalk (slow!), then moved to an acquired VM technology (it was bad!), and finally a VM we designed and built ourselves. These gyrations were a key reason why the project failed, though not the only one.
When Java came out in 1995--I got access to the alpha release in September--it met virtually every requirement we were trying to fulfill. At that point most attempts to build new databases on other VM tech became instantly obsolete. (Other vendors were also looking at VMs as well.)
Not coincidentally Nat Wyatt and Howard Torf, a couple of key engineers from our project, founded a start-up called Cloudscape to pursue the Java route. They created the database we know today as Derby.
Somewhat more coincidentally, Java became dominant in American DBMS development after 2000. Examples including Hadoop, Druid, Pinot, HBase, etc., are just a few of the examples. I say "somewhat more concidentally" because at that point most of us saw Java as simply more productive than C/C++ alternatives for building reliable, high-performance, distributed systems. That view has obviously evolved over time, but between JIT, dev tooling, and libraries it was definitely true in the early 2000s. It helps to remember how difficult C++ was to use at that time to understand this perspective.
In summary, a lot of the hype was the usual new technology craziness, but Java also met the needs of a population of people that went far beyond databases. There was a basis for our excitement. Just my $0.02.
There's another perspective. Many people were looking for something like Java well before it was released: VM-based, portable, modern object-orientation features, etc.
Case in point: databases. In the early 1990s I worked on a project at Sybase that attempted to rewrite SQL Server from the ground up to bring in object [relational] support. The team focused on VM-based languages as a foundation, which were an area of active academic research at the time. Built-in object support, portability, and ability to support code generation for queries were among the attractions. The project started with Smalltalk (slow!), then moved to an acquired VM technology (it was bad!), and finally a VM we designed and built ourselves. These gyrations were a key reason why the project failed, though not the only one.
When Java came out in 1995--I got access to the alpha release in September--it met virtually every requirement we were trying to fulfill. At that point most attempts to build new databases on other VM tech became instantly obsolete. (Other vendors were also looking at VMs as well.)
Not coincidentally Nat Wyatt and Howard Torf, a couple of key engineers from our project, founded a start-up called Cloudscape to pursue the Java route. They created the database we know today as Derby.
Somewhat more coincidentally, Java became dominant in American DBMS development after 2000. Examples including Hadoop, Druid, Pinot, HBase, etc., are just a few of the examples. I say "somewhat more concidentally" because at that point most of us saw Java as simply more productive than C/C++ alternatives for building reliable, high-performance, distributed systems. That view has obviously evolved over time, but between JIT, dev tooling, and libraries it was definitely true in the early 2000s. It helps to remember how difficult C++ was to use at that time to understand this perspective.
In summary, a lot of the hype was the usual new technology craziness, but Java also met the needs of a population of people that went far beyond databases. There was a basis for our excitement. Just my $0.02.
Edit: typo