Thread: What do you like/dislike about java?

Just curious on what others think the plus/negative points of Java are compared to other programming languages.

Pluses:

* Garbage collecting is nice, sometimes. No need to mess with pointers/deconstructors
* API (for the most part)
* Usability (being able to go from platform to platform without changing code)
* Javadoc (it's amazing how much help this is!)
* The way class files can find/access each other's methods. I hated how you needed to declare function prototypes in C/C++, and had to put special quantifiers on those prototypes to get the compiler to recognize a function was in another file.
* C/C++ code structure. Made the transition fairly easy, and I think the C/C++ code structure is one of the best, although has a rather high learning curve. Java's improvements to this syntax have made it a lot easier to understand. Personally, I like the strong-style coding (enforcing every last detail).
* Web integration. I think Java applets and such far outdo flash/java script.
* Java's special null keyword. Something I wished C/C++ had (I think it may be in the standard now, not completely sure)

Negatives:

* No memory management. This is a plus and a con
* No multiple inheritance. It's possible to get around this with Java's interfaces, I don't know if I like them, though
* No unsigned values (except char). Makes file data processing difficult
* No operator overloading
* No direct access to hardware stuff. Kind of handy at points. I know there are interfaces to get to these, but you can't create your own in Java
* Can't use 1's and 0's for true/false. Haven't quite decided if this is a complete negative, but I would like to be able to do this
* Enum's don't have a direct correlation to int's. I know it's an archaic thing, but sometimes it's very convenient math-wise when you have an enum that can be correlated to numbers without writing converter methods.
* Everything is a class. Still not sure if this is a con.
* Java's multi-threading. It's just too inconvenient and is way too cautious.
* JVM overhead. Over the years this has gone down, but it's still not my cup of tea.

I need to have a long think about this one I think, but from the top of my head.

Pros
- Ease of use, everything is just Ctrl+Space in Eclipse
- The massive amount of support for it
- Garbage Collection
- Servlets/JSP technology
- Plenty of thirdparty libraries out there with nice javadoc

Cons
- Garbage Collection
- Memory management

I'm sure there are more points I can raise on both of these and when I think of them I will add them.

Somewhat off topic
This will make your day

Enums do actually have a numeric representation and you DO NOT need to write any conversion methods for this.

public class EnumsTest1 {
 
    public enum Day {
        MONDAY,
        TUESDAY,
        WEDNESDAY,
        THURSDAY,
        FRIDAY,
        SATURDAY,
        SUNDAY;
    }
 
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        for (final Day day : Day.values()) {
            System.out.println(day.toString() + " = " + day.ordinal());
        }
    }
}

Maybe we need a little Java tips and tricks post regarding enums

// Json

:O can you decide what number to put for the ordinal?

More pro's:

* Jagged arrays
* I decided that everything as an class/object is a plus

Con's:

* poor implementation of generics You can't create arrays of anything with a generic.
* Not being able to pass by reference (primitives) is kind of annoying, too.