The JRE lib seems to be a compromise between "common types for everybody, but leave the convenience to external libraries" and "batteries included". This leaves

The JRE lib seems to be a compromise between "common types for everybody, but leave the convenience to external libraries" and "batteries included". This leaves both camps deeply dissatisfied, but allows for a great deal of integration between libraries. Maybe I have looked at Microsoft flavored C++ one time too often, but the fact that a single string type could reign unchallenged for twenty years makes it easy for me to accept that I need to use weird imports to tackle exotic convenience desires via statics (that, and the sad underutilization of CharSequence).