Iodine is a full superset of regular Java, but provides enhanced abilities that will make writing Java code easier and more productive. All your existing Java code should compile right away (just copy it over), and you can start making use of the enhancements, right away.

For the initial release, these include:

optional type inference with the var keyword "out" and "by-reference" parameters type extensions partial classes powerful aspects accessing getters/setters using property syntax global (class-less) methods and fields Cocoa-style multi-part method names (aka named parameters) and the list will continue expanding, with support for structs/records and easy property definitions, for example, coming in version 9.3. Read about all the language extensions here.

Iodine also does away with some silly limitations that plague Java developers, such as being limited to having one class per file (or, indeed, one file per class) or having to match the package/namespace structure of your code with folders on disk.