I don't think that's fair. GMail and Adwords are production applications and do just fine with Java.
I think it's more the opposite: Do not use Java when you haven't achieved product/market fit yet. Because it will cost you, dearly, in iteration velocity. Go write your initial version in Python or Ruby or Lisp or something that lets you quickly try out new ideas, and once it starts creaking under load, then you rewrite it in Java or C++.
You're implying that Wave engineers don't know how to use Java. But Wave engineers are Google engineers. Google engineers are hired somewhere in a high 90th percentile of programming ability and experience.
You've proven the GP's point -- don't use Java because the only people who know how to "use it" are 1% of programming experts that you probably don't have working for you.
> You're implying that Wave engineers don't know how to use Java. But Wave engineers are Google engineers. Google engineers are hired somewhere in a high 90th percentile of programming ability and experience.
According to comment in this same thread by a member of the Wave team, the problem is that they used Java the way it is supposed to be used, and that is why they ended up with over a million lines of idiomatic Java code when the same project would have been under a hundred thousands if written in another language.
