We wanted to give developers something that they could be ecstatic about, but we knew we would have to marry the simplicity of Google App Engine with the power and flexibility of the Java platform. We also wanted to leverage the App Engine infrastructure — and by extension Google’s infrastructure — as much as possible, without giving up compatibility with existing Java standards and tools.
~GAE Blog

When GAE initially premiered, it came with the condition that you had to use the one-and-only language supported: Python. While there’s nothing wrong with using Python for web apps, the GAE issue tracker almost immediately began to fill with requests for GAE to support other languages, with the most requests coming in for Java. I myself learned a bit of Python (which I think is an awesome language, by the way) just to I could tinker with GAE, and wound up writing a small Facebook application, but I yearned for the ability to utilize my 5+ years of Java experience. Now it looks like I’ll get my chance! The Google folks seem just as excited as the developer community.

In addition to providing support for standards like the Java Servlet API, Google will also be releasing an Eclipse plugin to complement GAE support for Java. I can’t wait to give it a try.

Via Google App Engine Blog. Image courtesy GAE Blog.