Re: Java blunders

From:
=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Arne_Vajh=F8j?= <arne@vajhoej.dk>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.java.programmer
Date:
Tue, 22 Jul 2014 19:44:23 -0400
Message-ID:
<53cef75d$0$291$14726298@news.sunsite.dk>
On 7/22/2014 2:41 PM, Roedy Green wrote:

I have composed an essay about what I consider were the blunders in
the design of Java. I hold out hope many of them will eventually be
fixed. You might like to add to the list.

see http://mindprod.com/jgloss/javablunders.html


# byte is signed. You almost never want a signed byte. Further,
# there is no unsigned byte. ubyte would be trivial to implement. It
# would require no changes to the JVM (Java Virtual Machine). It would
# catch all manner of bugs forgetting to do & 0xff after a byte load.

I completely agree.

# for each requires you to specify the type of the indexing
# variable. The compiler knows that from the type of the set it
# iterates over. This means needlessly propagating type information in
# more than one place in your program.

# You should be able to declare a temporary variable as having the same
# type as some other variable, so that for example if the original
# variable changes from int to long, the temporary will automatically
# change too.

You are really asking for the ability to use var/val and let the compiler
determine the type via type interference.

That is quite popular in languages today.

It could certainly be added to Java.

But I am so conservative that I think it would go against some
core Java principles.

# Java overuses {}. If you drop a } you can spend 15 minutes trying to
# get them balanced again. If methods, classes, loops, etc had unique
# end markers, there would be no problem. If methods, classes, loops
# etc had unique visual markers at begin and end, (perhaps small icons
# generated on the fly by the IDE (Integrated Development
# Environment)), code would be much easier to read and scan.

There are languages that use:
   if ... end if
   for ... end for
   while ... end for
   record ... end record
   class ... end class
   function ... end function
   procedure ... end procedure
   etc.

And I actually like that syntax.

But this can not be changed in Java without creating total
confusion.

Next language!

# Java uses + for both concatenation and addition. The ambiguity leads
# to all kinds of strange bugs.

Really?

That is not my impression.

You should be able to have arrays of Objects, not just arrays of

 > references to Objects so you could do an efficient Complex class.

You are asking for value types.

It could be added.

But it is a big chunk of complexity to add.

And I somewhat question whether the benefits are big enough
to outweigh the complexity.

Arne

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