> The magic features that's missing here is sum types. There is no good replacement in Java, and it precisely the right tool to model nodes in XML. Added to tha

> The magic features that's missing here is sum types. There is no good replacement in Java, and it precisely the right tool to model nodes in XML. Added to that the requirement to use mutable data structures here and it's painful. And don't even get me started on the difference between a null string and an empty string in the API. Yess! http://loup-vaillant.fr/articles/classes-suck http://loup-vaillant.fr/articles/classes-suck Maybe learning Java and its ecosystem isn't worthwhile after all.