> Why should I use a language that forces me to know about RAII and the difference between C pointers and "language provided idioms" to begin with?
No one asked you to. I don't like Eclipse that much personally, but I did not go to their page and say "Hey, you know what, I hate Java so your product sucks!". (I have deep respect for Java and the Java community, BTW). But frankly, as someone who has not written a line of code in C++ - however bad it may be - you're not really qualified enough to preach the world about its utility.
> I'll buy your "modern C++ is safe" argument if you buy my "modern Java is fast" argument.
Yes, the JVM is an engineering marvel - we all know that! What we also know is that it is adept at hogging all resources you might have(unless you learn how to use those bazillion -X<options>) - so no, thanks. I prefer compiling to native code and having total control, and in cases I don't want all that, I might just stick to Go or Python.
