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This same logic can be used to defend any "little feature". Language design is all about where you draw those lines.

• PySlice 14y ago
  That logic is just a starting point (just to avoid the "I don't need it, why can't you be just like me?"), not the whole thing. Then you have to take into account a few other criteria, such as [1] internal coherence in the language, [2] difficulty in implementation (and explaining to others) [3] what your target audience is, and what they want, [4] what competitors are doing. I think full operator overloading would hurt [2], but special-casing Bignums would not hurt [1], [2] at all (as I said, JSP EL already have +,-,*,/, etc. , String already have +, +=). [3] This is what this thread is all about, no need to repeat :-D And [4]... Well in this case Java is really playing catch up.