Assuming JVM installation is not required (to which I agree, it shouldn't be), why would you care which language a CLI tool is written in? I mean, do you even know whether a given binary is implemented in Go, Rust, etc.? I don't see how it makes any meaningful difference from a user perspective.
> Pkl, which is at least built using Graal Native Image, but (IMO) would _still_ have better adoption if it was written in something else.
Why do you think is this?
It makes a difference in size, in how arguments tend to be handled, and so forth.
As for why Pkl was in Java: it was originally built to configure apps written in Java, and heavily uses Truffle. Pkl is a name chosen for open sourcing, it had a different name internally to Apple before that which made the choices a little more obvious.