From my perspective, JS is more more enjoyable to use when writing UIs. Java's strictness is not nearly as useful for UI work than it might be for other domains, and Javascript's first-class functions greatly simplify event-based work (which is much of what happens in a UI). Also, JSON is painless to use in JS, while Java will again get bogged down in its type system -- if you use JSON as a transport format then yet another plus for JS. Java is great for the server, but I would never want to write a UI using it.

Java is not under a fully free license, as it is restricted on mobile platforms, hence the whole legal action between Oracle and Google.

> I don't understand the hatred of Java and love of JS.

I don't hate Java, but I hate to write the same application over and over again, one for every platform out there:

- the desktop web

- the mobile web

- iOS

- Android

- Windows Phone

- ...

With JS there is a little hope that we well be able someday to write the app once, and make it work on every device out there, if it is from Apple, Google, Microsoft, Samsung or whoever wants to enter the market next.

We are almost there, but we need hacks like PhoneGap/appMobi to make it work, and it's not optimal at the moment.

I was digging into webOS development back when the Pre came out and was hoping for a pretty upbeat development community _because_ of the use of web languages. Looking back, however, it felt like webOS (as a mobile OS) seemed too early for its time. The push for more web stuff didn't surface until way after Palm/webOS was deemed toxic to the touch.

It was a pity, but I hope the open source efforts end up redeeming itself. I'm definitely rooting it on and supporting it.

  The dev tools seemed to be everything that the common web dev wanted.

The dev tools are useless if the platform is a failure. Had HP not prematurely aborted the platform, and a Phonegap port been maintained, then I can hardly see what would have stopped WebOS from being at least modestly successful.

The problem was timing. Palm didn't make a webOS SDK generally available until something like two months after the first webOS phone (the Pre) was launched. This meant that they couldn't tap into developer interest during the big pre-launch hype cycle, which in the case of the Pre was massive, thanks to a hugely successful introduction of the device at CES earlier that year (see http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2338482,00.asp, http://www.cnet.com/8301-19167_1-10139851-100.html for a sample of the reception it got there).

Then by the time the SDK was available, the Pre had already proven less successful in the marketplace than Palm had hoped it would be, so developer interest had cooled. Nobody wants to write apps for a phone that's a flop.