Java and the Object-Oriented Paradigm: Comparison and Evaluation

Java has, undoubtedly, received unprecedented hype. This article examines Java in light of the Object-Oriented (OO for short) paradigm. We investigate whether the hype or part of it is due to the OO features, or due to other features of the language. For that purpose, we compare Java with other major OO languages such as C++, Eiffel and Smalltalk. Furthermore, we evaluate Java to arrive at an unbiased judgement regarding its expressive power of the OO paradigm. We outline some of the new interesting features of Java that we hope will be adopted by the OO community as new characteristics of OO languages. Finally, we present some recommendations that we hope will be considered in new releases of Java. - 2 - 1. Introduction As there are nowadays a plethora of Object-Oriented Programming Languages (OOPLs for short), we believe it is imperative and useful to compare Java with other important OOPLs in an unbiased way. In the white paper [1] as well as in other literature, Java is defined ..