why does Solaris run a Java desktop?

[pretentious]

I don't get it. What advantage does Java have over C or C++ when running a desktop enviroment on a single platform?

[jack08642qa]

and what are the advantages C and C++ have over java in a desktop environment on a single platform?

[WallShadow]

I'm not sure about the advantages/disadvantages in a desktop environment, but what I do know is that Java is much more multi-platform than C and C++ at the cost of power and simplicity. It is designed to be able to run on any platform which has Java installed. Don't know if this helped, though.

[weekend hacker]

I'm not sure about the advantages/disadvantages in a desktop environment, but what I do know is that Java is much more multi-platform than C and C++ at the cost of power and simplicity. It is designed to be able to run on any platform which has Java installed. Don't know if this helped, though.

^this
And also, they teach java in pretty much every college, a lot of computer science courses don't even touch C (except if its C#, talk about ugly useless languages..)
So the main advantage is you can have anyone fresh out of college program in it. And anyone who knows C or C++ could probably also learn java in a day or so.

[not_essence2]

Here, I'll get into Solaris' designers' head(s): The company they work for is fairly aged, so of course the old programmers retire (and of course, they die, sadly). Because the times are changing, with a new multi-platform language called Java taking over, it's no wonder their newly hired programmers and designers, several of which have had experience working elsewhere, decide to take the easiest path, as Java runs on a lot of platforms, and they've used it so much because they've been taught it and it works so much, that there's no reason why not. Why did Java get popular in the first place? It had a self-feeding cycle, that's why: Someone's introduced to it, they discover that it works on pretty much all the projects they're designing, they use it everywhere, more people are exposed because they use it everywhere, and then the cycle starts again, taking over the programming world like a swarm of Von Neumann machines.