Re: java & stourstup

Much of the relative simplicity of Java is - like for most new
language
s - partly an illusion and partly a function of its incompleteness.
 As time passes, Java will grow significantly in size and complexity.
 It will double or triple in size and grow implementation-dependent
 extensions or libraries. That is the way every commercially
successful language has developed. Just look at any language you
consider successful on a large scale. I know of no exceptions, and
there are good reasons for this phenomenon.
 [I wrote this before 2000; now see a preview of Java 1.5.]

Java isn't platform independent; it is a platform. Like Windows,
 it is a proprietary commercial platform. That is, you can write
programs for Windows/Intel or Java/JVM, and in each case you are
writing code for a platform owned by a single corporation and tweaked
for the commercial benefit of that corporation. It has been pointed
out that you can write programs in any language for the JVM and
associated operating systems facilities. However, the JVM, etc., are
heavily biased in favor of Java. It is nowhere near being a general
reasonably language-neutral VM/OS.

For more please refer to http://www.research.att.com/~bs/bs_faq.html