Java - the C/C++ inheritance

Interestingly, in many of my JavaOnes, this was the first time I attended the chat. I was disappointed that there was no fire anywhere. However, the energy level was very high and I enjoyed the discussions. The JavaOne Alumni is a very robust and influential community.

Of all the questions, the one that struck me most, was the intertwining of Java and the C/C++ language. Obviously, many of us in the Java community did take the C/C++ route and sometimes wish for some of the esoteric feautures of C/C++ that we miss.

When I joined Sun, I had a discussion with James Gosling about the fact that I loved STL and when would templates be incorporated in Java. I am glad that a much improved version of templates i.e. generics is in Java.

However, it also reminded me of some of the pitfalls. I quickly typed in a piece of C/C++ code.

#include <stdio.h>
main()
{
    if ( (unsigned) 0 < -2)
        printf("C is falling apart\n");
}

If you're able to guess the answer for this and realize why, you may probably agree with me that the unsigned is abused more than used appropriately.

I hope that Java continues to be relatively small, elegant and harder to commit mistakes. Thoughts?

Rags