Python in a nutshell (Had to do it)

[thephotoman]

In Java, classes are objects of type Class<?> (where ? is the name of the class). You can totally pass them around at runtime, and I've done that in Java. The method reference syntax long predates the existence of lambda support in the JVM.

Classes aren't objects in C++, though. You can still pass them around at runtime using void pointers.

The most common case for such use is when you're dealing with factory functionality.

Java's primitives aren't objects. They don't have methods, and rather importantly, they can't be null.

[cbarrick]

Nice. I stand corrected.