In my eyes, Java's biggest mistake is that the byte type is signed instead of unsigned. Masking a signed byte with (b & 0xFF) causes so much needless pain, and

In my eyes, Java's biggest mistake is that the byte type is signed instead of unsigned. Masking a signed byte with (b & 0xFF) causes so much needless pain, and I have never wanted to use a signed byte. On the other hand, I appreciate that Java doesn't have unsigned versions of every integer type; that simplifies things a lot. As for checked exceptions, I'm still undecided on whether they're a good or bad thing.