At present most applications are still developed with C++, painfully. Lack of portability, in compatible libraries, memory leaks, slow compilation, and poor productivity. Even if you pick only a single from these shortages, it's still a big headache. However the surprising truth is that C++ remains the first choice for desktop applications.

Compared to C++ Java has lots of advantages. The success in server side development shows that the language itself is good, Swing is also thought to be as programmer friendly as the highly recognized QT framework (No, never say even a single word about MFC!). All the disadvantages of C++ listed above has a solution in Java.

"Performance!", Well that might still be the problem but to my experience it's a slight problem. I'd been using Java to decode some screen video and generate key frames. The video has a duration of more than 1 hour. The time spent on an average machine is just 1 minute. With C++ I don't expect even faster speed. In recent days there are many news on the JIT performance improvements, that make us feel Java is gradually becoming very suitable for desktop development, without people realizing it.

Isn't it?