The Java hype was totally unprecedented and probably never repeated. The CEO of a big tech company was on network TV promoting a programming language. I heard stories on NPR in the car. My mother called me to ask me "about this Java thing." Java was everywhere and going to be in everything.
In was accompanied by a huge and successful push into universities to make it the standard didactic programming language. Even MIT switched from Scheme to Java.
I was on the crest of this wave—I actually taught myself Java and Scheme the summer before my freshman year @MIT—so I’m fairly certain that’s not quite right.
The intro CS curriculum stayed on Scheme until it switched to Python something like a decade after the Java hype cycle.
What I believe did change was the intro software engineering lab (6.170) switched from CLU (?) to Java around that time.
I started in 2003, learned C++, then did the majority of my courses in C++ with a class in Java with self-taught Python, C#, and PHP along the way for coursework.
Can someone fill me in, but is there still the derogatory "Java school"? I find that silly because most jobs in programming use some sort of managed memory programming language so teaching everyone in Java makes a lot of sense.
In was accompanied by a huge and successful push into universities to make it the standard didactic programming language. Even MIT switched from Scheme to Java.