I remember for so many years people abhorring javascript. For quite a while though it was the only language being commonly used that had first class functions where you could program in a functional way.

"'I thought JavaScript was just super-dumb Java'. Lots of programmers and web developers use Javascript this way, tweaking HTML DOM elements, declaring variables without types, and generally writing like it was BASIC for the web. Now we find that the C-style syntax and Java-like supporting libraries were hiding our friend, the lambda."

http://jfkbits.blogspot.com/2006_05_01_archive.html (near the bottom)

It's got nothing on Ruby, but you can still do some amazing things with it, IMO:

http://parenscript.org/

http://chumsley.org/jwacs/

Anyway, nice to have people seeing it for what it really is, even if it's no Arc :)

Eclipse makes Java a compelling and highly productive language. Without Eclipse, perhaps Java would not have been as popular as it is today?

Nice: VB has gotten about cut in half. Die! Die! DIE!

VB was the world's most widely adapted language until Microsoft decided to lift its support in favor of VB.NET.