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Elliotte Rusty Harold: Type Inference: Another Bad Idea for Java 7

Type inference actually makes some sense in languages like JavaScript and PHP that are built around this, and had this feature from day 1. It makes no sense in a language like Java that’s built around the opposite. It makes Java look weakly typed, but it isn’t. In fact, if anything this is now more strongly typed…

Good analysis of a bad idea. I really dislike the idea of adding more and more language features that require new syntax or something like described in the above article. It just makes it confusing. Either create a new Java which has all the old crap tidied up, or go ahead and write a new language that can run on a JVM which has all the features and language constructs you need.

This is why I really like Smalltalk. There are very few reserved words, and the language is highly extensible so you can go ahead and implement new ideas without breaking anything old, requiring arcane syntax, or making the language less usable. Ruby struggles in this area also due to all the different ways of doing something.

Simplicity has a lot going for it.