I'm constantly amused how Java is supposedly stupid for protecting programmers from things they shouldn't do and yet also stupid for not protecting programmers

I'm constantly amused how Java is supposedly stupid for protecting programmers from things they shouldn't do and yet also stupid for not protecting programmers from things they shouldn't do. IMHO Java makes some choices about safety. If you don't agree with those choices, use a different tool. It doesn't make Java wrong for having a different opinion. Likewise I wouldn't berate C for being too low level or Ruby for favouring readability over performance.