After bashing Java so brutally, I have to add another thing to the list of Java features that I wish C++ (or even just a GCC extension) had: @override notation. Imagine this scenario...

You have a base class that implements a bunch of methods, and some of the methods have numerous overloads. We'll call this class base.

You have a bunch of classes that derive from base. Each of the derived classes only override some of the methods provided by base.

These derived classes are used by other infrastructure that just takes pointers to objects of type base.

For example:

class base {
    virtual void do_something(float x);
    virtual void do_something(int x);
    virtual void do_something(char *str);
};

class d1 : public base {
    virtual void do_something(float x);
};

class d2 : public base {
    virtual void do_something(int x);
};

class d3 : public base {
    virtual void do_something(char *str);
};

Everyone with me so far? Sound like every large C++ you've ever seen? Good.

Now the signature of some of the methods in base changes, perhaps by adding a parameter. While making that change, n-1 of the derived classes are correctly modified.

class base {
    virtual void do_something(float x, int y);
    virtual void do_something(int x, int y);
    virtual void do_something(char *str, int y);
};

class d1 : public base {
    virtual void do_something(float x, int y);
};

class d2 : public base {
    virtual void do_something(int x, int y);
};

class d3 : public base {
    virtual void do_something(char *str /* FAIL!!! */ );
};

Try to find the bug or go to drinking island?

In Java this bug would never happen. All of the do_something methods in the derived classed would be annotated with @override. When the compiler found do_something in d3 that didn't match the signature of any do_something in base, it would complain. With C++ you just spend hours trying to track down the bug.

P.S.: I still hate Java.