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Java is much more portable than C#. I can run Java with GUI's on just about every operating system known to man. I've heard speculation of being able to run C# on cell-phone but have seen no evidence. Java is built-in to most of the higher end cell phones these days.
Now, as far as syntatic sugar goes, operator overloading is by definition syntatic sugar. All it adds is a way of writing code a bit more simply. It doesn't add anything new to the programming language. There also was a mention of the fact that C# treats all data types as objects whereas Java doesn't. This is true. Whether or not this is really a benefit is debatable. Java does, however, provide object wrappers for the primitive types which should provide all the featuers that C# does.
The main disadvantage to C# is that it's not a particularly mature language. It's also being pushed by a company that hasn't been known for cross-platform compatibility in the past.
As far as Java removing all the "good stuff," from C++, that's not really true at all. C++ have some features that can make it fast. It also has a lot of features that are very easy to screw up (multiple inheritance, operator overloading, pointers, memory management). Java was a language that was designed to be easy to program in. Often times, with the speed of today's computers, using Java is just as fast as C++.
I think the key factor in designing a program is picking the right language for the job. There is no one right language for everything so don't think there is.
As for (x y +), that's postfix notation. Writing something as (+ x y) is prefix notation. What we're used to (x + y) is called infix notation. Postfix and prefix are easy to parse which is why some languages (namely, LISP) as well as some calculators (HP's) use that method for input of mathematical expressions. Postfix is also sometimes referred to as Reverse Polish Notation but I believe that may be a bit derogatory.
Matt
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