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Java was very innovative at the time, with byte code and JIT, a more clear OO design relative to C++, embeddable safetly sandboxed web apps, memory safety in a "professional" language, cross platform binaries (in a non scripting language) etc.

The mid 90's was a long time ago. What was exciting then is not exciting now.

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Everything that you mentioned was already available at the time in other languages. This is not innovation.

But to what extent was it available in a polished package?

For example, everything in rust was available in other languages, i would still say it was innovative because it brought all that together into a polished package that made the right tradeoffs for mainstream usage.

> But to what extent was it available in a polished package?

To a large extent. Both Smalltalk and Erlang were mature at that point in time.

> everything in rust was available in other languages

I am not doubting you but are you aware of any other language with affine types? I am not.

Java? Polished?

What is the single language that had all these features?

Smalltalk and Erlang for everything except the "webapps" part. For that there was flash.

OK. Java did all of it, including the web apps.

Yes, we know that.

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