It’s interesting to put Java and .NET side by side. .NET has been described as Microsoft’s attempt to beat Java at its own game, and even as “Java done right”. The designers of the .NET framework and the Common Language Runtimes could look at Java and see what worked and what didn’t, and learn from it.\n<\/p>\n
\nSomething that I think Microsoft got right with .NET is making everything an Object.<\/b> \nThat’s being changed in Java 5, but they still appear to be doing some sort of halfway fix. Just reading the Immutable Objects section in this overview of boxing in J2SE 5.0<\/a> makes me nervous.\n<\/p>\n
\nIt’s like whoever wrote Java thought that object-orientation is good, but didn’t quite dare to go all the way. Or perhaps (and more likely) it’s historical baggage again…. Java’s distinction between primitive types and their Object equivalents, such as int and Integer<\/a>, is the most obvious example. ints are for simple maths but they cannot be put in Collections – you need an object for that. On the other hand, you cannot just add two Integers. And each boxing\/unboxing requires an explicit instantiation of a new object. It all adds up to a whole lot of code that just juggles data types.\n<\/p>\n