The debugging and profiling features are definitely better than most, but other languages running on the JVM benefit from that too. I think most of what people

The debugging and profiling features are definitely better than most, but other languages running on the JVM benefit from that too. I think most of what people use Lombok for though are features that should be part of the core language by now, or would be better as library methods instead of annotations. Like generating constructors, equals, and hashCode methods - case classes and data classes in Scala and Kotlin respectively handled that within the language spec many years ago. I need to try Java’s new Records, perhaps they handle that stuff now. Lombok and friends also include features that change language semantics like @SneakyThrows. Byte code injection sometimes also changes language semantics. Early in my career I spent a few hours perplexed by why my code was encountering null when the code path I was examining used only non-nullable primitives. Turned out injection and rewriting had turned my primitive long into a nullable Long. I don’t like not being able to understand my code from just reading the code. The magic means I have to be aware of spooky action at a distance mechanisms and review their documentation. I also need to open the debugger more regularly to inspect what’s actually happening at runtime instead of just mentally compiling my code.