This paper examines the impact the use of the Java programming language has had on the way our students learn to program and the success they achieve. The importance of a properly constructed first course in programming cannot be overstated. A course well experienced will leave students with good programming habits, the ability to learn on their own, and a favorable impression of programming as a profession. In this paper I detail how and why the Java programming language was selected for our curriculum, how my teaching has evolved over the years since Java has been adopted, and what successes and failures I've encountered. Specifically, this paper discusses some of the peculiarities of the Java programming language that make it difficult to learn and some suggestions to overcome them, as well as some of the teaching paradigms and programming tools I have employed. What my experience has shown is that combining the use of a modern interactive development environment such as the Netbeans, with active learning and a breadth-first approach is found to increase student satisfaction, increase success rates, and lower dropout frequencies. (Contains 4 tables and 4 figures.)