[0xGhostInAJar]

Java was chosen because it offers a strong balance for this project in terms of portability, ecosystem maturity, and development velocity.

Rust would absolutely be a strong candidate for a security-focused tool like this. However, Java provides mature cryptographic APIs and straightforward cross-platform distribution via a single JAR.

C and C++ offer performance and control, but they introduce additional complexity around manual memory management and long-term maintenance. For this project, working in a managed runtime helps reduce certain classes of memory-related bugs.

Python is very productive and has excellent libraries, but for a file-heavy encryption workflow the performance characteristics and stronger static typing of Java are preferable.