In a formal paper from Sun, oh so many years ago:
The newest version of the Microsoft Visual J++ development environment supports a language construct called delegates or bound method references. This construct, and the new keywords delegate and multicast introduced to support it, are not a part of the JavaTM programming language, which is specified by the Java Language Specification and amended by the Inner Classes Specification included in the documentation for the JDKTM 1.1 software.
It is unlikely that the Java programming language will ever include this construct. ... We believe bound method references are unnecessary because another design alternative, inner classes, provides equal or superior functionality
Fast forward a decade, and Java is still in the stone-ages, meanwhile Microsoft gave up on J++/JVM due to Suns refusal to innovate and gave us a language with not only "Bound Method References", but anonymous closures and lambda expressions.
Looking back, I wonder where Java would be now if their pissing match with MS didn't exist, and they had actually adopted delegates.
Hindsight is 20/20.
Posted by Jonathan Holland on 5/8/2009.
Tags: .NET Java Delegates Fail