I was stumbling around the net and discovered that suggestions have been made for primitive types to be removed from future versions of the Java programming language. This got me thinking, even though Java more or less "does it for you" when it comes to memory management surely there is an inherent understanding that using primitives instead of objects where appropriate would be better? or is that a false assumption on my part?

For simple things like keeping track of a player's numerical attributes number of lives, health, experience, etc I would have thought using primitive types instead of Object types would have made more sense.

There are other programming languages that don't have primitive types at all, but to my knowledge they aren't as popular for games as C/C++ and Java etc wihich do have primitives. So the question is quite simply, are primitive types necessary for Game Programming? Would there be any knock on effects of removing them from a language?

To clarify, in terms of Java this will mean direct access to primitive types for the purpose of declaring variables will be removed. Without direct access to these types every variable you declare will be an Object. So int for example will no longer be available instead you will have to use the Integer class and create an Object. The language will still have an internal concept of numbers and the ability to manipulate them obviously but in terms of writing code everything will have to be an Object.

Source: The Register: Java won't curl up and die like Cobol, insists Oracle

For the Java Development Kit (JDK) 10 or after, a fundamental change is being discussed: making the Java language Object Oriented. This might see the introduction of a unified type system that turns everything into objects and means no more primitives. The JDK is the developer kit that
is officially released by Oracle, based on the work of the Oracle- and IBM-led OpenJDK project

For example:

public static void main(String[] args)
{
     int appleCount = 10;

     System.out.println("You have " + appleCount + " apples");
}

This will no longer be possible, instead you will have to use Objects:

public static void main(String[] args)
{
     Integer appleCount = new Integer(10);

     System.out.println("You have " + appleCount.toString() + " apples");
}

I know this example is unrealistic it's just meant to illustrate the point.

I guess my main gripe with the idea of "Objects Everywhere" is that it will add complexity where it isn't needed.

If I have a player class with an int and an accessor method to get that int I would simply return that int and the value could be used.

With Objects everywhere since objects are passed by reference it wouldn't be possible to pass by value anymore - all primitives in java were passed by value - so now if you want to make sure the caller can't modify your member you'll have to create a copy and pass back the copy instead.

Same goes for calling methods, there'll be a lot more instances where the member will now have to be copied so that it can be passed to a method without worry that it might change the original.