That's fair. I'm not quite there. I can do Perl and Python and PHP and SQL. But at my age it's spreading me too thin to learn new languages.

I gotta say though with over 20 years of experience including a mission critical product based on Java/Apache I have never seen it do anything that something simpler and more specialized couldn't have done better.

Allow me to share my perspective -

To get a full-blown Linux operating system running today with anything the typical user could possibly need, web-browser, media players, skype, e-mail, office suite etc, a few scientific apps or school apps... This is very doable even including all 3rd party drivers - to get down to around 4GB now. [Check out Arch Linux if you don't believe me]

There is no excuse for the size of the Java installer - none.

Here's all the cruft you need to add to a system like that - the system that does everything that 70% of the Internet needs to do on a regular basis with their home computer - and add Java:

ca-certificates-java (version 20161107) will be installed default-jre (version 2:1.8-57ubuntu1) will be installed default-jre-headless (version 2:1.8-57ubuntu1) will be installed fonts-dejavu-extra (version 2.37-1) will be installed java-common (version 0.57ubuntu1) will be installed libatk-wrapper-java (version 0.33.3-13) will be installed libatk-wrapper-java-jni (version 0.33.3-13) will be installed libgif7 (version 5.1.4-0.4) will be installed openjdk-8-jre (version 8u131-b11-2ubuntu1.17.04.3) will be installed openjdk-8-jre-headless (version 8u131-b11-2ubuntu1.17.04.3) will be installed

• Ok that's only 100 megs.

But now if I want to develop it?

It picked openjdk-8 for me. Why not 9? Oh and if I go search my official repositories, now I can no longer see openjdk-5 or 6 or 7. To continue to use those legacy versions, I will not have to compile myself or install untrusted or 3-rd party packages. And this becomes a semi-annual part of my job now.

No thank you. I will stick with vim and real languages.

You're thinking like a programmer not a developer.

The load of weight and complexity that Java carries is not worth it. It is a trap to keep you enmeshed and beholden to a system that creates a 'vertical market'. Not to mention the abhorrent security, raw stack size, licensing overheads, and dealing with programmers who know it. [The last matter, to me, indicates either this programmer is not aware of the bigger picture and didn't go into a more useful niche, or he is some kind of great polyglot and I can't afford him anyway, plus that probably means he's smarter than me and I find that threatening.]

It's getting bigger because it is constantly getting bigger because it is bloated shit.