[_telemachus]

Serious question: Aren't the C-based problems simply hidden from the programmer there? That is, the problems still exist, but you can no longer address them, qua Python, Ruby, Java programmer. That seems worse, not better.

[drdaeman]

Depends on implementation. CPython may have problems due to C bugs. Java is self-bootstrapping, though, and has no relation to C except for interfacing with external programs using C calling conventions. In this case problems are not hidden, they are truly not existing, except for problems introduced by other programs you interface with - but not your code.

[meowface]

You're quite wrong regarding Java. Much of its standard library is implemented in C and C++, and there have been frequent security vulnerabilities found in the language that are a result of buffer overflows or similar memory corruption bugs within the underlying C/C++ implementation.

There are many, but here's one such example from last year: http://osvdb.org/show/osvdb/94336