>Ben Brosgol wrote:
>>
>>   Nevertheless the
>> language's very high degree of portability and safety (more than Ada's in
>> fact)
>
>I will believe that Java is more portable than Ada,
>so long as there is a JVM for the platform of interest,
>but safer?
>E.g. there are no run time value range checks.
>
>Most Java checking was put in there for security, not safety,
>reasons.

Java rules prevent references to uninitialized variables, and the absence of
unchecked deallocation (as well as the presence of other rules, such as the
requirement that inner classes can only reference constants (final
variables) from outer scopes) prevent dangling references.  These have
security implications but can also be regarded as safety issues.

BTW I am perfectly well aware of the large number of omissions from Java
(such as range constraints on variables, strongly typed scalars, generics,
operator overloading,...), and I also understand the argument that such
omissions may make the application programmer's job more complicated and
thereby lead to less safe programs.  So I can argue this issue either way.
But I have seen some folks from the Ada community dismiss Java as just a
bunch of hype, and this is a serious delusion.

Ben Brosgol
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