>>Speaking of Java in particular, there seems to be some concern in its community about its future since the (pending) purchase of Sun by Oracle. FWIW MySQL users have the same concerns.
>>
>>So, you think it would be a little foolish at this point to jump in it?
>
>Depends on your needs. Java is mature, has various frameworks etc. Some other languages aren't as mature.
>
>>What would be the worse case scenario?
>
>A trajectory exactly like VFP's.

That would be quite a falloff. Check out these stats about jobs by computer language. You won't have to read very far down any of them to find Java. The last chart is a composite of all the others.

http://langpop.com/