@fribbledom SQL is a good data manipulation language that's been shunned for reasons I don't understand, and Java is the new COBOL. Not surprising.
@hushroom
Eclipse is a free IDE and has at least half of th features you've mentioned.
And tbh I too enjojed coding stuff in Java. With an IDE by your side, static types and verbosity are *good*. They make the code easier to understand and reason about, but you stilk don't need to type those things by hand, because the IDE is here witg autocompletion, error underscoring, and suggested autosolutions (eg for missing imports, uncaught exceptions, etc).
I've heard that the more enterprisey parts - particularly JavaEE - are a hell, but I haven't touched those.
hmm i might actually learn Java then. i already speak SQL.