Why do Java developpers neglect error messages?

It feels like everytime I use Java for this project I am left wondering one thing, what is with the error messages? Today I had a problem with the query I was sending to the datastore and the only error message I received was a null pointer error message at the line the query was being executed. The query itself was written in a previous line of code and I had no way of knowing whether the error message was due to assigning the object to a List, lack of data being returned or any number of potential problems.

AppEngine is currently at version 1.2.6 so I would expect more care given to error messages by now. Even worse though is that I am using the mature JDO framework that Google have modified to work with AppEngine. Surely after all this time they would have decent error messages being returned. These type of things really annoy me, because they waste hours of my time that could be better spent working on my project. By the time that I figure out the cause of the error I am too angry to continue on with the coding.

Surely if you are going to take the time to write a framework for others to use, especially if this is for use on your own servers for your customers to use, you would want to make the development experience as straight forward and annoyance free as possible. I am really starting to understand why Java has such a bad rap.