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Java has always been a good language if you ignored the ecosystem. The ecosystem is a large part of what defines a language though. You have to take care in how you define that ecosystem.

I sometimes wonder if Node.js is making mistakes in the opposite direction as Java with their ecosystem these days.

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Java has always been a good language if you ignored the ecosystem.

You mean "no unsigned types (even though the language is essentially machine-level when it comes to integers), no compact memory layouts for aggregate data, no useful function values without jumping through hoops etc." is an approach that leads to good languages?

I think he's alluding to the stuff that comes after the language is released, not the language design/architecture itself. Node is not a language, so his comment probably implies that he's referring to the design choices of build system, development cycle (of tools, libraries and frameworks), and things like dependency management.

That's not my opinion, but just what I understood his comment to be about (personally I prefer the npm approach any day over Maven).

A language IS its ecosystem. In 2013 java is a good platform.

I believe the ecosystem mentioned is the consistently over-engineered AbstractFactoryFactory mindset that permeates so much of the Java space.

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