>Even though the JVM could do X or Y better than another platform, just the time spent learning about it feels like a waste of time, as I could already be productive in another language which is less optimized and less complex, but much faster to develop with. It seems just learning to use a Java IDE is a job in itself.
Any other comparable language (basically with static types) would want to use would require an IDE too. Of course you can write C or C++ or Rust, etc without one, but you'll be as unproductive as writing Java without one (nothing inherently IDE-demanding that Java has compared to these).
Or at least configuring Emacs for the task, which can be a full job in itself too.
Now, if you talk about something like Python or JS etc, maybe. But the JVM != Java, and those languages run there too.
Plus, there's nothing really to "configure" to run the JVM, any more than you need to configure Python. There are GC and other options, but you can ignore that for the same (or even more) time than you could in Python.
Any other comparable language (basically with static types) would want to use would require an IDE too. Of course you can write C or C++ or Rust, etc without one, but you'll be as unproductive as writing Java without one (nothing inherently IDE-demanding that Java has compared to these).
Or at least configuring Emacs for the task, which can be a full job in itself too.
Now, if you talk about something like Python or JS etc, maybe. But the JVM != Java, and those languages run there too.
Plus, there's nothing really to "configure" to run the JVM, any more than you need to configure Python. There are GC and other options, but you can ignore that for the same (or even more) time than you could in Python.