I had to work on a Java-based web application for a brief-but-terrible moment, and I am very happy to have spent the money out of my own pocket for IntelliJ. I think using Java for web apps is a Bad Idea, but IntelliJ, at least, made it tolerable to write code for.

Java is great for web apps. Libraries for everything, quite fast if you keep services running (as opposed to loading them on demand) and has been quite successful in the sphere for quite some time. It's just not everyone's cup of tea. I think the more you like dynamic languages or functional the more you're going to absolutely hate java.

Java's great, but if we're building a WEB app, I like a language that can also generate the view. In Java land, everyone is now relying on some Javascript library, and I hate having to make 2 compilers agree at the edges where they touch.

I agree with that wholeheartedly, but there is a solution: there is teavm which can compile byte code to js (and wasm), or google’s closure compiler.

There used to be also GWT and nowadays Vaadin I believe to do frontend completely, but I honestly think that a shared business lib with native frontend for each platform is the best way forward.

The only edge they touch is the REST API. Granted, it’s a bit annoying to map types in Java and JS, but it’s easy through Swagger or Typescript.

Not just Java. It's best for any languages they support. The only thing is that it's not lightweight but hopefully they'll get Fleet right.