why does java suck?

I've noticed in the short time I've been reading this board that there's a lot of java bashing, so I was wondering why people actually think it is so bad. I'm no java fan, but I've used it for some stuff before and it didn't seem terrible to me. An argument used to be that it runs slow as a guro-fied loli, but they've improved a lot in that aspect.

Please give good reasons, rather than stuff like "it's for certified professional consultants" or whatever you guys say.

First of all the big beef programmers have with Java is that it runs on a VM. Yes, the thought of cross platform language is nice, however it doesn't have too much use when it comes to commerical applications or games seeing as everything is emulated. (Even today some 64 games can't be emulated quickly, and those emus were probably written in C\C++)

Second IMO is the lack of pointers, java internally uses pointers however unless the programmer can use them they can't access the power they give. If you're used to programming in C you would know how powerful pointers can be, not just for passing parameters but many other things as well.

Third that relates to #2, the File IO is a piece of shit. They should scrap it and start over. Because Java is a massive blob of inheritance doing a low level copy of data is impossible. So your objects have to be serialized before they can be written to any file. Depending on how this is done I can or can't be a chore. But take it to concideration that C has 5 functions that can do anything you need fopen, fclose, fseek, fread, fwrite.

The fourth is a personal vandetta, I dislike the GUI design the most. It's not difficult setup, sometimes it can be, but it's more long and boring.


Really the only plus to Java besides being cross platform is that it teaches basic concepts of programming quickly. Other then that it's a C++ rip off with no pointers and garbage collection.