Summary
There has been much discussion of proposed new features for Java in recent times, but what problems do those features need to address? What are your actual pain points today with Java?

There has been much discussion and debate about new features for Java, such as the various closures proposals. Instead of talking about specific new features for the Java language, I'd like to take a step back and survey what the problems really are with Java right now. There's an old saying, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it," so I'd like to simply ask what's broke with Java right now?

Please post your list of Java pain points in the discussion forum. To keep weed out minutia (Java pin pricks), such as there's in the dictionary Cloneable wouldn't have an e, try and limit yourself to your top three pain points, in reverse order. Your most painful point will be your number 1, second most painful number 2, and third most painful number 3. Lastly, for each pain point, please try and explain the real business cost of the problem.

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About the Blogger

Bill Venners is president of Artima, Inc., publisher of Artima Developer (www.artima.com). He is author of the book, Inside the Java Virtual Machine, a programmer-oriented survey of the Java platform's architecture and internals. His popular columns in JavaWorld magazine covered Java internals, object-oriented design, and Jini. Active in the Jini Community since its inception, Bill led the Jini Community's ServiceUI project, whose ServiceUI API became the de facto standard way to associate user interfaces to Jini services. Bill is also the lead developer and designer of ScalaTest, an open source testing tool for Scala and Java developers, and coauthor with Martin Odersky and Lex Spoon of the book, Programming in Scala.