<i>The next thing I tried in Java was creating a web application. I bought a book on J2EE and as I began learning the ins and outs, I began to hate it with a passion. The amount of configuration and boiler plate code to get something simple up and running, was a huge turn off to me. I was disgusted with the concept of EJBs and all the various patterns in J2EE</i><p>Who said you need to use EJB's to do Java web development? At least spend some time learning Java before you start bashing it. Anyone else getting tired of the constant bashing of Java?
Chris: never use automatic memory management?<p>The only time I have, after the fact, thought it worthwhile using C/C++ was some Nintendo game development. Well worth the effort to lower memory footprint and get good runtime performance.<p>Everything else I have done, in hindsight, would have been better done in a language with automatic GC. Fortunately for me, SAIC bought me a Lisp machine in 1982 and since then I have been able to do a lot of my work in Lisp, Prolog, Ruby, and Java :-)