The bad news is that from management's POV, livingness and usefulness are closely related. No matter how wonderful language X may be, if you can't find employees to code in it, you aren't going to use it.

So you can see why Java is popular... because it's popular!

That doesn't matter if you are just hacking for pleasure. But if you need a job... well, if I had java, I'd probably be much more employable. No regrets though - I'm doing a PhD in political science, which is guaranteed to make me unemployable, but I still love it.