We looked at using Perl or Java, but neither language supported everything we needed. Perl supports OO only as a last-minute addition, sort of nailed onto the side, and doesn't enforce any of the class attributes. Java does a lot of what we wanted, but doesn't support multi-user operation or allow classes to be reloaded after being modified. Function parameters are named, as in Ada. Catch and finally blocks apply to the code block they're enclosed in.
Garbage collection is done, as in most interpreted languages.
A description of how cross-machine objects and garbage collection will work.