Java Programmer Perils

Java is the latest programming language technology to be touted as the programming language solution to the most difficult software engineering problems. Developers expect Java to help them to write programs that are more reliable, secure, and easier to debug. Unfortunately, some features of Java are destined to increase programmer stress by providing obscure places for bugs to hide. We discuss seven such Java features and show that these features can lead to bugs that are difficult to fix. Keywords: Java, programming practices, software engineering, software reliability, debugging, object-oriented programming, programming language design. Every few years a new software development technology catches the attention of the software development community. Java is now the latest such technology; it is touted as a solution to problems of software reliability, portability, security, etc. The use of Java has grown as fast or faster than any prior software development technology [5]. Java has..