I never said I believed that this change should be immediate. I believe it would be a logical "next step" to be taken in the future. JStamp is a new product, J-Stamp has not even been released.
I was drawn to JStamp over J-Stamp mainly by the large amount of both SRAM and EPROM. Perhaps overkill, but nice all the same.
I don't read "Stamp 24-pin footprint" as complete pin compatibility. If it is as simple as popping the Basic Stamp chip out of the control system and putting the J-Stamp in, then it's the logical choice. However, I doubt such is the case.
Also, I'm not sure what a "subset" of the Java language means, either.
All in all, it's hard to make conclusions without full technical specs...
As for going beyond the limits of PBASIC, recent discussions have shown FIRST teams are technically capable enough to stretch the limit of the software/hardware. Not to mention, why not change? Try something new...
Java is a beautiful language. I know several hardcore C programers that have been converted to Java. Most disliked it at first, but it tends to grow on you. I disliked it very much. I think it a very elegant language now that I have more experience, as well as being as easy to implement as 'visual' languages, while still writing actual code. It's not perfect by any means, but is vast improvement over PBASIC.
Give it chance... I think you'll like it.
And what's wrong with starting over? Algorithms never really change (bubble sort in C is the same as bubble sort in Java) and there's a another level to the competition. I see nothing wrong with starting over.
Adam Krajewski