I think you have very short-sighted view of Java. Java has GraalVM. There's simply nothing even close in .NET world. And this is just about the core of the runtime.

Java is catching up quickly. I say that as a .NET-focused dev, who touches Java once a year.

I primarily develop Unity Applications and there is IL2CPP that compiles and runs IL code as C++. Also, I’ve developed in Java regularly over the years and it’s never a pleasure. C# is a better language. Java 8 introduced Stream API and it sucks. I hate how blotted every new Java Library is in size and API smell. Everything in Java land is over-engineered and Tomcat can die in a fire.

I work with both regularly since 2002, alongside occasional C++ development, and Microsoft UI division really needs to clarity what they want.

The GUI roadmap is becoming a joke, now they are pushing for Blazor on Web Widgets as Electron alternative alongside MAUI, with a "pick whatever you like best".

This doesn't work like that when selling long term solutions to customers, specially when we still have UWP scars to take care of.

It feels that after WinRT failure to take over the world, they are unsure where to go next, and throwing into all directions to see what sticks.

Keep in mind that you're on Hacker News: the majority of the commenters will not be referring to desktop software but rather web, which is where all the focus and the drive behind all .NET Core feature development has been coming from.

I think it's fair to say that the .NET team absolutely has a vision and has made significant progress towards achieving it so far as web (frontend/backend) development is concerned, despite how ridiculously lacking the desktop UI story is/has been. (In fact, it's even worse than that since 10 years ago, .NET was the only ecosystem that had an excellent and comprehensive story for UI development that was supported from start to finish.)

Check the deep chain of comments discussing the postponing of AOT and Java interoperability for cloud deployments on .NET 6 to .NET 7, as resources were focused on making MAUI work on macOS.

Where was this?

You kind of proved my point.