While languages like Ruby provide the pertinent information you need, why can't Java provide a decent, useable, toString() method right out of the box?

ActionScript 3.0 includes many object-oriented features that have an obvious Java-like syntax , but there are some nuances of ActionScript 's object-oriented support that are not so Java-like.

The toString () method’s usefulness is so proven that some languages newer than Java have taken the concept even further.