[MarkMc]

I've also been coding Java professionally for 17 years and like you I feel Java is a great little language. What makes the biggest difference in productivity is the simplicity of the algorithm and associated object oriented design, and I've never really felt that Java was hindering me in achieving that simplicity.

I wonder how well the like/dislike of Java correlates with like/dislike of object-oriented programming. I've always loved object oriented programming but there seems to be many programmers who feel the opposite, and for them Java would be going against the grain.