What's wrong with the Java dependency? There's even a single-binary Bazel executable[1] that brings its own embedded OpenJDK. My company is using Bazel and the Java dependency has never been an issue.
Even if you write custom rules, you use the Python-like Skylark language and never interact with Java code.
No, that's generated also, but is highly reusable whereas some people get along completely fine without Java (unless you make them pull it in for Bazel for Firefox).
Well, no. Reproducible builds are a security concern and a source base distro is highly optimizable and configurable. Just because you do not see the purpose does not mean one is absent.
Java's build artifacts are too painless. GNU/Linux distributions tend to have a policy of "we build things from source, we don't simply re-publish the authors' build artifacts." Because Java's build artifacts are so painless, source artifacts and build processes are neglected. I'm convinced that there are many "foundational" Java libraries that have never been successfully compiled on anything but the original author's computer, right before they uploaded the .jar to Maven Central.
With a Java package, the final distro package will mostly be a single .jar file under /usr/share/java/, but getting to that .jar file from source is often a nightmare.
With a Python package, the final distro package will mostly be a sprawling directory under /usr/lib/python/site-packages/, but getting that directory from source is very rarely anything more than `./setup.py install --optimize=1`.
In my experience, large, complicated Python packages with C dependencies can be a huge nightmare just like large Java applications, and simple cases are simple in either case. With many dependencies, you need to unbundle every single one and package it separately, in either case.
This is an irrelevant statement. You need the C compiler anyway. Your Java or Python is built with C. You add the complexity of your other environment on top of it.
The Arduino IDE calls out to avr-gcc, and mbed-os is written in c++ so requires an embedded c++ compiler like arm-gcc or something similar. ChromeOS also runs the Linux kernel so you do need it to compile the OS, and it can hypothetically run binaries compiled for the linux platform. Dig deep enough through all the layers of bootstrapping and you'll find c basically everywhere.
"Works" can mean very different things on Windows. On one extreme you can have proper integration that covers Windows' idiosyncrasies such as automatically finding and setting up the Visual Studio environment instead of making the user jump through hoops like starting the dev command prompt. And on the other extreme you can have something hacky like "requires Cygwin" which I personally wouldn't even call "works".
