Coming from C++ to Java, the obvious unanswered question is why not operator overload. On the web some go about: "it's clearly obfuscated and complicate maintenance" but no one really elaborates that further (I completely disagree, actually). Other people pointed out that some objects do have an overload (like String operator +) but that is not extended to other objects nor is extensible to the programmer's decision. I've heard that they're considering extending the favour to BigInt and similar, but why not open that for our decisions? How exactly if complicates maintenance and where on earth does this obfuscate code? Isn't : Complex a, b, c; a = b + c; much simpler than: Complex a, b, c; a.equals( b.add(c) ); ??? Or is it just habit?