PG explicitly states in the essay that it's not that much on Java itself but rather on the way hackers judge technologies (the "hacker radar" in his expression).
And these are not quite predictions but statements on how Java is (or was then back in 2001) perceived.
And I think, IMHO, a substantial part of the Java success today should be attributed to the JVM, not so much to Java, the language. Clojure/Scala/etc. are kind of clues for this.
PG explicitly states in the essay that it's not that much on Java itself but rather on the way hackers judge technologies (the "hacker radar" in his expression).
And these are not quite predictions but statements on how Java is (or was then back in 2001) perceived.
And I think, IMHO, a substantial part of the Java success today should be attributed to the JVM, not so much to Java, the language. Clojure/Scala/etc. are kind of clues for this.