For the curious among you who haven't already read the
papers and formed an opinion:-), here is a mini review of
Java:

- To a first approximation, Java is very much like C++.
  C++ haters can stop right here:-)/2

- Except that it is garbage collected (nice as you don't have to
  worry about memory leaks).  Java has constructors but not
  destructors (a pity, since without destructors a class can not
  do class specific cleanup).

- Uses the Unicode char set (nice).

- Has interfaces and packages in addition to classes.  Useful
  for constructing large programs.

- No multiple inheritance (they claim use of an interface
  as a type provides some of the same facilities).

- Has exceptions.

- Pointer arithmetic not allowed on arrays.  Their length is
  determined at runtime.  [But they missed obvious extensions
  like assigning a sub-array to another array etc.]

- Some support for multithreading.  For example,
	synchronized (foo) {
		....
	}
   execute the block only while object foo is locked by us.
   (so atmost one thread at a time can be in the code
   block).  IHMO, this is a misuse of the word
   `synchronized' -- I would've preferred `critical' or
   `mutex' region.  Anyway, I don't see how to do a
   conditional critical region that does not use busy
   waiting.

   An obvious extension would've been to allow a list of
   objects to get a lock on (the runtime system can then
   grab locks in the order of their address and release
   them in the opposite order to prevent a deadlock).

Apparently there is a sizable library though I haven't looked
at it.

If you like C++, this seems like a pretty neat language to
play with.  I use C++ but my current favorite is Scheme.

I have tried to give an unbiased view but if some bias has
crept in or if I have made any mistakes, I apologize in
advance.  Read the Java papers yourself when in doubt!

-- bakul (who should really be working on that damn tax return...)