If reading code is your problem rather than writing code, I find that Java excels. Most of the complaints are about writing code in Java. You know how awesome

If reading code is your problem rather than writing code, I find that Java excels. Most of the complaints are about writing code in Java. You know how awesome that type inference is in Scala, and how stupid and annoying it is in Java to type stuff like Map<K,V> myMap = new HashMap<K,V>? I totally agree with how annoying that is. Here's a related example in scala. def myThing = something.getSomeThing() What is the type of myThing? Java has weaknesses for sure but reading code is actually one of its strengths, precisely because of the boilerplate. Note that I'm not defending EJB or any other atrocities here, just the core language. Lastly, I agree that syntactically-nicer closures would be better for Java. But it already has closures, final Something variableImClosingAround; Runnable myClosure = new Runnable() { public void run() { variableImClosingAround.doSomething(); }}; exec.submit(myClosure);