Now that IBM has given their Smalltalk to Instantiations, we have some more irony to look at - they've noticed Seaside:

Avi Bryant had created a continuations-based server in the Ruby programming language, but left for the Squeak dialect of Smalltalk -- a pure, object-oriented language invented in the early 1970s, when Ruby continuations proved to be a little too unstable. (They've since been fixed.) He then built the Seaside framework on the Squeak dialect of Smalltalk and has never looked back. He now uses Seaside to quickly build Web applications for his customers. They're willing to put up with a niche language like Squeak because the framework is so productive, lowering the total cost of development dramatically, and improving time to market.

I'm not suggesting that we'll all be programming in Smalltalk in the next 10 years. That train rusted at the station. But I will say that language issues go away when there's compelling economic justification. Give me an application written in an obscure language that's five times as fast as an application written in a popular language, make it easy to maintain, and charge me one-third of what I'm spending today, and I likely won't care what language you pick.

Read that second paragraph, and then note that Continuation based web apps can't really be done in Java - you don't have the capability. You can use Seaside in Cincom Smalltalk as well - it's on the CD. There's extra irony as well - IBM's finally noticed the power of Smalltalk, and the one they had (VAST) can't support Seaside anyway - there's no Continuation capability in that product. So if this stuff interests you, pick up Squeak or Cincom Smalltalk.