Departure Of The Java Hyper-Enthusiasts? 678
TomH writes "Bruce Eckel has an article at Aritma, where he posits that 'The Java hyper-enthusiasts have left the building, leaving a significant contingent of Java programmers behind, blinking in the bright lights without the constant drumbeat of boosterism.' Has the previous hype of Java and J2EE moved on to Ruby (on Rails) and Python?"
Next Question (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:good riddance (Score:2, Insightful)
Please explain your loathing of java.
A Humble Note (Score:1, Insightful)
I can't think of many languages where this is true and that's why I think I'll always appreciate Java. It was a case where a practical computing technology was built after the theoretical studies were done.
It was a language done right and the first in this manner I could appreciate.
Re:good riddance (Score:2, Insightful)
No (Score:3, Insightful)
Java isn't going anywhere for a while. It is a fantastic language for large scale projects simply because its very easy to write maintainable code AND its buzzword compliant. That latter fact alone will keep it afloat years after it is truly dead.
Don't get me wrong, I love [sf.net] Python and I have really high hopes for it in the coming years, but to declare that "enthusiasts" have left Java, seems silly
time to make fun of them again (Score:3, Insightful)
They ALWAYS do
Not this discussion again. (Score:5, Insightful)
ROR having (more) hyper-enthousiasts only means it's newer.
Has the previous hype of Java and J2EE moved on? (Score:5, Insightful)
about 10 years ago:
Cast off those old tired relational databases! It's all object databases! It new! It's modern! It's chic!
C++? So passe'! The greatest thing is Java! So trendy, so fresh!
In the past few years:
Object databases are not with it! XML databases are the way to go! So modern! So *you*!
Now:
It's Ruby on Rails! What are you thinking using that dingy old Java! So... last season! Step into the 21st century!
etc.
The only thing I can think of which is more fad driven are diet books and management crazes (E.g. '7 habits of Effective Plan Z 2 Minute TQM EManagement iCommerce Gurus for Dummies (but were afraid to ask)').
Yet another reason to leave IT.
VB for the 21st Century (Score:5, Insightful)
However, I don't think either have even registered at all in the commerical job market, so comparisons to Java are especially silly. As long as the Java programming market is so huge, there will be plenty of hype.
No "serious development" on Python? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't suppose you've heard of this company [google.com] before?
There are dozens of others, too. I'll cite this page [python.org] as a source, though it is by no means comprehensive.
It's gone to .NET (Score:5, Insightful)
No, the hype has moved on to C# and
I don't blame people for getting excited over
Re:maybe to ruby, not python (Score:1, Insightful)
I don't need a drumbeat to follow (Score:5, Insightful)
It's the compromise that is so important (Score:5, Insightful)
C++, which Bruce used to love, made *no* compromises, except to run C code. It wanted to include anything possible as long as it was fast, and it did except that it was so freakin complicated that even to this day sometimes compilers can't interpret the source correctly. In the same way, Ruby (and Smalltalk) also do not make compromises. They say 'everything is an object' even though that means computations are 20x slower even after decades of optimization. They say 'no type checking' (if it acts like a duck it is) even though it is pretty much a necessity for large or reliable systems.
Regardless of the level of hype, the real world of programming is about compromises. It's about Java, and C#. Sure there will be plenty of work at the edges for Ruby/Smalltalk and C++/C, but Java-like languages will be the center of programming for decades yet.
time to move on (Score:3, Insightful)
What are the problems?
First, Java never turned into an open standard like C or C++. Initially, it looked like there were going to be dozens of independent implementations besides Sun's and Microsoft's, but they have all disappeared. The only way to run a compliant Java platform these days is with Sun's implementation or one of its derivatives (IBM, Oracle, Apple).
Second, Java is focused on niche markets; most of Java's real-world use seems to be in enterprise apps, a market segment that by itself is not enough to sustain a general purpose programming language (Java may well be the new Cobol).
Third, related to the above points, Java has failed to evolve sufficiently. Sun has failed to address concerns and needs of the scientific and numerical communities. And many of Sun's changes have been hampered by backwards compatibility with the JVM (e.g., genericity in Java 1.5 is deeply flawed). And Java never acquired a reasonable native code interface, keeping it out of many applications.
Java has made a valuable contribution by demonstrating to many working programmers that features like garbage collection, reflection, and runtime safety are useful, but those features are essentially 1970's technology. Sun has failed to evolve Java beyond that, and that's why it's time for other languages and other stewards to take over. Fortunately, there are many other excellent languages being created. The Java language itself (but not the platform) will probably be with us for a long time, although probably running in many environments other than the JVM.
Java had the potential to be a lot more than just a transitional language from C/C++ to modern, safe, reflective languages, but Sun unfortunately has failed to realize that potential fully.
Re:A Humble Note (Score:5, Insightful)
ML has a deep, solid formal foundation with type safety and provable semantics.
Prolog has a foundation in inductive logic.
Lisp is based in lambda calculus.
SQL is rooted in set theory.
Now, Java may be the first commercially popular marriage of mainstream (C++) syntax which at least has provable type safety. That's a good thing in itself.
With All Due Respect to Bruce E. (Score:5, Insightful)
The bottom line is that the majority of programmers are bad programmers. These move to the easiest fad where the majority of people go. And that's not a horrible thing, it's just a thing most senior engineers don't care much about. Because, and I say this after interviewing tons and tons of developers, real devs dig deep on their own, and do not 'rely' on the work of others. And before I get flamed here, it's not to say they don't use the work of others, it's just that I've seen many seniors spend hours trying to figure out how something works, rather than spend two minutes asking for help.
p.s. I think Bruce Eckel is awesome -- "Thinking in Java" is rockin'
Re:What about LAMP (Score:2, Insightful)
Like you said, bad design and bad implementations are the reason for lack of maintainability, the language makes little difference.
Re:Hype? (Score:5, Insightful)
2. There are no idiot VC's handing out cash to start Marimba-ish companies based on vague ideas about using Python and Ruby.
3. Python and Ruby don't have an easily-understandable if not really accurate hook comparable to Java's "write once, run anywhere" hype.
Re:maybe to ruby, not python (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:maybe to ruby, not python (Score:5, Insightful)
1. I've started using Turbogears and its is wonderful. Easy to setup, very easy to understand, and very powerful. I cannot comment on it with respect to Rails, but as far as I know it is inspired by similar ideas. One major advantage of Turbogears is that it is built out of several existing projects that have had lots of use and development, SQLObject (for Object-Relational mapping) and CherryPy.
2. I can't imagine any reason to believe Python would be more error-prone than Ruby. From a language standpoint they are very similar. However, Ruby is a somewhat immature language compared to Python. Standard library, 3rd party support and performance are all lacking in Ruby. I'm sure these things will catch up in time, but for now it's a much newer environment and it shows.
Another Religious War (Score:5, Insightful)
Just another religious war.
C++ vs. Java
C vs. C++
C++ vs. Smalltalk
Lisp vs. everybody
Perl vs. PHP
Javascript vs. VBscript
VB vs. C++
Delphi vs. VB
Haven't we moved past this language is great but this language sucks yet?
You use the tool that will get the job done the best and easiest. If you tried hard enough, you could probably use the Lotus 123 macro language (showing my age) to write a web app, but would you want too? With someone of these languages, Python, Perl, PHP, Ruby, Java they are similar enough that they are all good enough for the same jobs. Languages are tools that programmers use to write applications. Personally, I like PHP and Ruby but I'm not knocking those that like Phython or Java.
Why knock that someone likes another language?
Why another religious war over Ruby vs. Java?
Fundamental computer science (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:maybe to ruby, not python (Score:1, Insightful)
OK, everyone knows Java's a nonstarter these days. Ack, why did they kill it with Swing
You are using Swing as a reason for selecting a programming language / platform for a web application? That is somewhat bizarre.
instead of a decent lightweight GUI
Google for SWT.
I've done production web systems in C, Perl, TCL, PHP, and Java. Ruby and Python for learning purposes only. If I started a "major db-driven web app" today, what would I use? Java. Maybe Ruby or PHP for a small personal web page, but for serious stuff there is no question.
Of course Java is so popular that it every self-respecting /. |337 person must rebel against it -- can't go along with the great masses, after all. But if you do a brain-based decision Java is it by a wide margin.
Re:Hype? (Score:2, Insightful)
They want to do everything in Java - even a basic web site.
- If all you have is a hammer, then everything in the world looks like a nail."
You all need (Score:5, Insightful)
That's exactly my attitude, too. Couldn't agree more.
You know what I liked most about the tech bubble bursting? All of the loudmouths, charlatans, and marketriods went elsewhere for a while. I got to do some real work for a change instead of building demos.
So the hypemeisters have a new favorite platform? Great! I can stop reading the slashdot posts from anit-hype nazis who only love to yell at marketriods. A pox on all of your houses, I say.
Re:Hype? (Score:5, Insightful)
No other language has ever managed to pull off what Java has. In fact, it was the driving force behind the modern push for cross-platform languages, complete (and free) API libraries, and Object Oriented Programming. I look back at days before Java, and they seem like the dark ages of computers.
If Java has lost its hype, it's only because it's already accomplished all its goals.
Re:Hype? (Score:3, Insightful)
In the past 10 years, there have been at least 6 or 7 big 'waves' that have hit, and if you tried to follow them all, you would never really get to know any of the languages.
What about saying: "Well, this really works for me. It may not be the latest and greatest...but today's latest and greatest is going to be tomorrow's old dirty shoe. So I'll just stick with today's old dirty shoe, until there is a reason so compelling that I will change."
It works...really...if you value productivity and efficiency.
Viva La Cobol
Okay, not really Cobol...but you get the idea.
And for those Cobol programmers out there...good job. Just hang on a few more years and you'll be able to retire.
Re:nothing (Score:5, Insightful)
Cost of CS Professor = CP = ~$100,000 (only salary, does not include facilities, offices, electricity, water, equipment, payroll taxes, support staff, campus police, repairs due to soccer hooligans, etc) = ~$50,000 per semester.
Number of Classes taught by Prof = NCP = ~3 per semester
Cost of in-state tuition = CIT = ~$4000 per semester
Classes taken by undergrad = CTU = ~4 per semester, minimum
Students per class = SPC = Between 10 and 200, say 30 average.
so we have (CIT * SPC)/CTU = FPC = $30,000 to fund any given class, call this FPC, or Funds per Class
FPC * NCP = $90,000 in Funds per professor per semester.
After the Profs salary that leaves $40,000 per professor to run the school.
Now Consider that any given Prof is likely to have several graduate students, either on fellowship or as TA's. At a good school this will be about a 1-1 ratio, so 1 grad student for every professor. Grad students make about 18,000 per year, plus a tuition waiver. Generally there are actually more grad students than professors, but lets pretend that isn't the case.
So $40,000 - $18,000 = $22,000.
That $22,000 per professor left over certainly won't cover even the cost to maintain the facilities at the university, not to mention computer labs, libraries, shuttle bus, payrol taxes, health care, internet connection, etc etc etc.
Then there are the support staff, secretaries, grounds crew, deans, etc etc.
Next add on millions per year in renovation and new building construction. To that you can add the cost of all the University staff, such as the people who review applications, the people who work in the bursars office, and so on and on and on.
Real Bottom Line: The University wants to teach you to be a Computer Scientist, not a code monkey. If you want to learn C++ so badly pick up a book and learn it on your own. Most professors will be very glad to answer your (legitimate) questions on any subject relating to their field. If you can't manage to learn it on your own, then give up and major in PolySci or Communications, because you aren't going to make it in teh real world.
What about multiplatform? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:maybe to ruby, not python (Score:3, Insightful)
As much as I hear this regurgitated ad nauseum in the comments here it still makes me chuckle.
Just did a simple search on a few different cities on monster.com and it seems that there's about 10 or 11 times more positions available to java programmers than ruby and python combined.
I've done a little python and don't mind it so much, and have only read a few tutorials on ruby and ruby on rails. They both seem ok, but neither have a syntax anything like what I'm used to(C,C++,Java,C#, etc...).
I'm curious if gcj/gij + gnu-classpath had a complete and open 1.5 spec implementation on par with the Sun JVM's performance, would the anti-java hostility still be there?
As a programming language I find it extremely productive on the client or server, and there is an API to do pretty much anything you could want.
Re:A Humble Note (Score:4, Insightful)
People always brag about their million-line
Java is a nice VM and a solid, mindbogglingly featureful library - but a mediocre language.
Re:Hype? (Score:3, Insightful)
I suppose that depends on what you mean by "basic web site". A good architect always tries to plan for any likely scenario. Quite often, that "basic web site" may be bound for a long life as a "not so basic website". If you tie yourself to PHP or ColdFusion, you may find yourself with serious performance and scalability problems inside two years. That's not a good situation to be in, and could have been prevented. (I've seen this happen in WAY too many companies.)
OTOH, if you're just implementing a simple shopping cart to integrate with Paypal for the few products your work-at-home company sells, go ahead and use PHP and best practices. Your best realistic estimates are unlikely to show your website expanding beyond the capabilities of PHP within a few years. And if you do have extreme expansion like that, you've got more important problems to deal with.
Re:Next Question (Score:1, Insightful)
We end up with 100000 lines of javascript on client side for three time the cost of our 200000 lines of java code on server side.
Ajax means Javascript which should not be used in corporate development. Therefore Ajax cannnot be compared with Java.
Re:Hype? (Score:3, Insightful)
No it didn't. ASP was interpreted up until ASP.NET.
Servlets were a world changing technology compared to CGI. JSP's just-in-time compiling kicked ASP up between its ears in performance. Add runtime safety to the mix (you can't crash your entire server application by GPFing or dividing by zero) and you have the makings of a revolutionary product for its time.
Re:With All Due Respect to Bruce E. (Score:3, Insightful)
Sorta off topic, but can you explain how this
I've seen many seniors spend hours trying to figure out how something works, rather than spend two minutes asking for help.
is a good thing?
What if the two minute explanation includes the fundamental answer to the question? I think a good developer (regardless of years of experience) knows when to ask a question and knows when to improve knowledge in an area. If would be quite unhappy as a manager to pay a developer for hours of research if the answer could have been had in 2 minutes.
Re:Python hype does not exist (Score:3, Insightful)
Just use some naming conventions. Every sane project does. Personally, I use "_protected_member" and "__private_member". It does the trick. And really, if your python dev can't follow these conventions, they indeed deserve to be fired.
Python is simply the most graceful language ever (when you follow the Zen of Python). And that counts for something when you want to scale. That being said, the dynamic nature of Python is better tamed (because yes, using it without caution can be fatal.) with TDD.
And my nearly finished ~10K LOC python project could (and probably will), I think, scale quite nicely, thanks to TDD.
Re:maybe to ruby, not python (Score:2, Insightful)
Disingenuous (Score:5, Insightful)
Please. For years the Java wonks have been calling performance a strawman argument, usually followed with "get a faster machine".
Now they're using exactly the same performance argument to argue against what is now one of the premier up-and-coming programming environments? Now the table turns; if ROR or my fave the Python-based TurboGears [turbogears.org] is too slow -- well then, get a faster machine. That argument worked with Java; now it works with Java's replacements.
Re:maybe to ruby, not python (Score:3, Insightful)
Run time errors are much much badder than compile time errors.
Given that i've worked at only one place where I didn't have to work with people who would make this kind of error, I'd much rather stick with a language that will let me avoid having to debug this kind of mistake.
Re:A Humble Note (Score:5, Insightful)
For those of us awake at the beginning of Java, Java was anything but a joke. It was almost like manna sent from heaven.
The alternatives were some pretty poor bundled C compilers, GCC 2.x.x, and some pretty lame C++ implementations.
It really gets frustrating waiting five years for someone to actually come up with a C++ compiler that does templates correctly.
> Java is a nice VM....but a mediocre language
If you believe this go treat yourself to GCC 2.9.x. Try to do something with it. It truly sucked.
Re:Hype? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you call those comprehensive libraries, then I have a bridge to sell you. The 1.1 library (which was where Java first started taking off) had such features as a standard SQL API, advanced I/O capabilities, remote method invocation, GUI support, image handling, standardized complex data structures, cryptographic support, text processing, data compression, and many other features lacking in libc/STL. The Java 2 library and on added a metric boatload of useful new APIs (XML, CORBA, collections, XSL, Logging, Registry, RegEx, Directories, Sound, MIDI, etc.), guaranteed to be on every platform Java was. That's one hell of a feature!
That's mostly a web server issue,
Serlvets and JSP are "standard" Java libraries that made the language well suited to the task. It's irrelevant if it's a "web server" issue or not. It directly impacted its popularity.
and it's technically untrue. You could write a multithreaded C program to handle web requests using pipes or other IPC mechanisms.
(rolls eyes) Well then, KDE wasn't the first Open Source desktop because I could have written one first!
That's a stupid argument, sir. Part of Java's popularity was that Servlet and JSP technology was the first technology on the market with these features. If someone wrote a customer server to do the same prior to Java, it didn't help the rest of the market at all.
Again, what? All functional languages support reflection because functions are first class objects.
Riiiggghhht. So let me just compile this code here, and then have this program I wrote a few months back over here automatically investigate the functions and run them.
No wait, I can't do that. The compiler threw away that information after compile. Plus I need to write a very special loader to get the code into executable memory to begin with. And it's platform dependent.
Java is inherently reflective at runtime. Native languages only keep that information for DLLs and the like.
You looked in the wrong dark corners, oblivious to the superior (yes, even to Java) functional languages that, true, have been ignored by "mainstream" users, even in computer science.
Another poor argument. I said that the other languages failed to bring many features mainstream like Java did. You agree but state that I'm wrong. How does that work, sir?
No, they're Consultants (Score:2, Insightful)
Most programmers program, trading their time and knowledge for money. The ones who hype have an agenda beyond that -- to sell themselves for financial or egotistical gain. The former are consultants (selling themselves, not the tools and practices they purport to sell for a liviing), the latter are that guy who spends all his time on the mailing list, telling you how great x is, and how stupid you are for uisng y.
Not that there is anything inherently wrong in this -- in fact, I'd argue that both groups serve a valuable function in our industry -- so long as people understand that the motivation for this has a lot less to do with the languages, techniques and tools directly than for the person who's doing the hyping.
Slashdot Java Article Formula Revealed!!! (Score:2, Insightful)
Its getting seriously funny how many articles there are like this. Slashdot posted this nearly identical article about LAMP a week ago.
Why is it always language XXXX compared to Java rather than C++, C#, ASP, or even LAMP? I guess it means that for now Java is the king of the hill?
So which is superior...LAMP or Ruby (on or off the Rails
I actually do enjoy these discussions because there are always more efficient ways to accomplish specific goals. Java can take a bit to get started with, but once there it is unparalled in being the Swiss Army knife of software development.
Without the competitive efforts of the Ruby community and M$ for instance Java probably would get stagnant so I applaud you Mr. Ruby Developer (Rails or otherwise).
Just give me a call when people start converting complex Java apps to Ruby because its easier to extend and enhance.
Re:time to move on (Score:3, Insightful)
So then is Hashtable<B,B> a subtype of Hashtable<B,A> and Hashtable<A,B>, which is multiple inheritance, or a subtype of Hashtable<A,A>, which leads to basically a parallel tree of types over every independent variable in every generic type and recursively since parameters can themselves be generic types? All this basically means that it is extremely hard to do instanceof operations in any reasonable time.
So are Java's generics really so bad, or are they just one of another good compromise between practicality and formalism that makes Java so great? I say the latter.
Python's wretched threading (Score:2, Insightful)
I suppose you could use Jython and get the benefits that way... (it is much slower and way behind C Python).
Before you flame me, let me just say that I spent a great deal of effort trying to build a threaded telephony server in Python and it was just not possible.
Re:Next Question (Score:5, Insightful)
Ruby (on Rails) -- yes
Python -- no (sorry)
And the hype will come back to java in about a year or two when people realize groovy has all the benefits of ruby but with a bigger set of production quality libraries (all those from java) and that it can be compiled too.
This is actually the most exciting time for java in a long time:
a) scripting - groovy (JSR 241) & beanshell (JSR 274) & bindings eg for PHP (JSR 223) & BSF
b) New lightweight frameworks are blossoming (eg spring, hibernate, webwork, EJB3)
c) Aspect Orient Programming is blossoming in java (AspectJ, spring, JBoss)
d) Tools growth -- Eclipse plugins, Ant tasks, JUnit extensions, velocity & xdoclet, XML utilities
When groovy hits 1.0 and the people who left for Ruby start realizing they miss all the java libraries, the hype will come back. RoR is popular for two reasons -- Ruby has a very efficient syntax and Rails innovated with the "convention over configuration" idea. Groovy solves the first problem and the second one will be adopted where appropriate by the framework wonks.
Ruby's downsides are it's a raw young language (weird errors, its slow, small set of libraries, and poor tools support). In the end these negatives and the innovative things happening in java will win out.
Re:Hype? (Score:3, Insightful)
I think your reasons for the hype really hit the nail on the head. Before Java, programming languages were just languages and usually didn't come with a huge standard API. Especially one that was object orientated , cross platform, and was really powerful.
The concept is so good that Microsoft did their best to copy all the good things about Java (almost everything from Java and a few from VB) with C#. I don't think we would have C# or the .NET framework if it weren't for Java. So to say that the hype was undeserved is just silly. However, because Java has grown to be a little over complicated, a lot of people don't understand Java, and people fear or dislike what they don't understand.
Re:Hype? (Score:2, Insightful)
No.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Bear in mind that most of the "features" not included from C++ were examples of very poor language design.
There are some omissions from Java which are unfortunate, like pre-conditions and post-conditions, however most of the omissions were not present in Java's predecessors.
The only features of C++ which are lacking in Java and which arguably should be included are: operator overloading, and some variant of the const keyword (although not exactly like C++ const, which is hideously overloaded).
No serious programmer ever brags about million-line programs, or claims that lines of code somehow correlates positively with maintainability. You're attributing a point of view to "people" which they don't possess. Perhaps some friend of yours made a comment like that, which you now attribute to "people"? Typecasting containers is not done in Java, since it has generic containers. Re-implementing missing containers is very rare since the Java API has a wide variety of containers already (some even argue the API is too big). Recoding functions for different datatypes is unnecessary since Java has always been polymorphic. And there's nothing wrong with switch statements; they're syntactic sugar for if/else (I assume you're not opposed to if/else).I'll grant that the repetitive get/set wrappers are unfortunate and unnecessary. I don't understand why the designers of Java don't just borrow ideas from Eiffel on this matter. I realize the Java designers are opposed to syntactic sugar in general, but in this case it would be justified, since a huge proportion of Java code wasted is on statements like "public Foo getFoo() { return this.foo; }".
What is Java? (Score:3, Insightful)
For some it is the byte compiled oo language, these people chose it because it looked like C++ but with no explicit pointers and a GC.
For some it is the platform, in other words they liked the large library of classes that came with it like swing/awt, math, networking.
Others liked it because of the technologies built on top of it or with it: J2EE (EJBs etc.), Applets, Servelets
Yet others liked it just because it is the most portable and functional language+platform they had ever seen. Here when a company makes a product written in C/C++ that they have to port to another platform, having a "compile once, run anywhere" language can cut costs of developing/maintenance dramatically
As far as the Java fanatics and cheerleader of the past years are concerned they probably moved on because that is what they do - they get excited about a new technology for a while, make a lot of noise then move to another new technology. Java is already used extensively in the industry and is not going away soon.
As far as Ruby and Python. I would have to say that Python is probably the best successor of Java. Why not Ruby? Because, as you say Ruby is a raw young language it doesn't have nearly the libraries that Java and Python has. The only context I ever hear of Ruby is when it is mention in the "Ruby on Rails" title. I know it is a more pure 'cleaner' object oriented language than PYthon, Python is just more practical, and more intuitive as far as I am concerned. I was planning to write my project in Java, but after a week of playing with Python, I was up and running and I believe I finished in 2/3 or 1/2 the time it would have taken me to write it in Java. Look at a simple code comparison in java and one in Python
: In Java
Versus the Python versionRuby is pretty close but I dismissed it as not having enough libraries and add-ons. With python for example, I can even run it on a Java platform with JPython and still access the rich java libraries. I can optimize parts of my code in C and either use the syntax extensions of Pyrex, or weave to inline that code into regular python code. There are good GUI bindings (Qt, wxWindows, Gtk and of course the default Tk, for those seeking to punish themselves), there is threading, networking, good regex support. My favorite is the native dictionary (hash table) data type. Just use something like "dic={}" to initialize an emtpy dictionary then "dic[key]=value" to use it, and that is it - no need for new no need to import anything.Re:In short, no (Score:3, Insightful)
I actually like Ruby and I like Rails. I just don't think the speed gains that come from it being interpreted necessarily outweight the explicitness of Java as it's currently used. I can get anything I need to done in Java, it's easy to install and it's easy to test and log. It just works.
Re:Hype? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Hype? (Score:3, Insightful)
>Python predates Java. When I program in Java, it's always a pain to replicate the functionality I get with Python's default libraries. Python comes with "batteries included."
I think the two packages in Java that really differentiated it were java.sql and java.rmi. It gave you an API to work with numerous databases on numerous platforms. That is still tough to find in other libraries. RMI made it easier to distribute large applications across multiple platforms. I don't see a lot of people doing this with Python & Ruby. Java also came with reasonably good threading support, some minimal support for locking, and some mostly-thread-safe libraries. When Java came out, most of the other languages had libraries for collections, file access, and if your were lucky, network operations.
>> it was the first language with reflection designed into its core, and it was the first language to bring OOP, Virtual Machine, and cross-platform capabilities together into a workable package.
>Python has had compiled bytecode for a long time. And it's also clearly object-oriented.
Python compiles into bytecode, yes. Java has a just-in-time compiler that turns the byte code into native code. Psyco is not as good as the leading JITs.
>Unless you mean the first such language pushed by a *corporation* rather than by *enthusiasts*.
Or maybe the first language targeted towards corporations. Some of the largest users of Java these days are companies with large database+web applications, with a lot of business logic. Python and Ruby may be getting more of the smaller projects these days, but it will be some time before they are able to get some of the larger ones.
Re:Hype? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:maybe to ruby, not python (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:A Humble Note (Score:3, Insightful)
Smalltalk belongs in that list you site- ML, Prolog, Lisp. Especially notable because Smalltalk is where Java gets most of its features.
Re:With All Due Respect to Bruce E. (Score:3, Insightful)
API (Score:3, Insightful)
If you call those comprehensive libraries, then I have a bridge to sell you. The 1.1 library (which was where Java first started taking off) had such features as
That's because Java is not a language with a standard library: it's a development platform, almost an OS, with an associate standard language with which you reference the imense API. It's almost the same as a sh script accessing the POSIX utilities: as long you're in a POSIX environment, you'll be able to use them, using the same standard sh scripting language.
Only thing annoying is that java is a lousy scripting language to handle what is otherwise a nice programming environment. Thankfully, Jython, ruby and others are coming along just nicely in said environment...
Re:Hype? (Score:1, Insightful)
Like you who "dabbed in Java years ago", there were guys just like you developing Matlab plugins, OUI, webapps, javascript apps, etc... Companies were trying to get Java apps out ASAP with developers that either were experts in C++ that thought procedurally, or at your level of programming (why did you stop dabbing? why did you find no use? would C++ have solved your "problems"? Hmmm...), or levels where developers just started learning what the heck is OOP and Java. Java opened the door to a lot of new developers, which in the end help the profession, but hurt it as well as poor coding practices, bad designs, and internet hype ended with bad applications, like the ones you complain about.
You need to consider that Java had to evolve much faster than C/C++, do more than what C/C++ had available and be taught to people that were new to programming, period (think outsourcing companies!). So I say Java's hype is slowing, but because it's matured. And the latest Java GUI apps are 10x better than what was around 2 years ago, and with mechanism like AJAX, JSF, and Servlets 2.4, the apps are going to get better.
If (that's a BIG IF) RoR gives us a paradigm shift in development compared to Java, then it will likely go through the same growning pains, otherwise, it will end up like another Python--a great supplement to C/C++/Java.
Your argument sounds like a typical end-user, if product A doesn't "work", goto product "B" and bash product "A". Sun hype is just a bad as FOSS OSS everything!), as bad as M$ (.NET everything!), basically as bad as the next guy. The original post asks the question in a developer context.
Re:What is Java? (Score:2, Insightful)
GWBASIC still rules! (Score:5, Insightful)
10 PRINT "TEXT"
then you would do
GWBASIC FILE.BAS
Beats "python file.py" every time...
Fake arguments involving hello world apps should not be taken as a way of comparing languages.
Re:maybe to ruby, not python (Score:2, Insightful)
Why oh why do people feel they need to say the same things everytime a discussion about Java starts up. Slow, memory hogging, swing sucks, etc, etc. These arguments simply are not true about modern JVM's
I love to hear this argument. OK...can you show me what a native windows app should look like? Why don't we take a look at Microsoft Office. You will note that microsoft doesn't even use a consistent L&F between different versions of office. Please repeat after me...there is no such thing as a truly native look and feel. Apple now uses 4 different L&Fs for the applications they write. What is the native L&F on Linux (Motif, KDE, Gnome, etc...what theme?). Look, here's an article that discusses it: http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=10633 [osnews.com] In Java, you can set the look and feel to be platform native. The problem is a lot of folks set there app to use the Java L&F (Metal) which does stand out and is down right butt-ugly. This is the developers choice, not a problem with Java.
Can you explain to me what's wrong with Java's event queue? I do a great deal of swing programming and I find the event queue very simple to work with. Generally you can ignore it. If you have long running actions (such as long database transactions) you can fire them off in a seperate thread or use SwingWorker or Foxtrot http://foxtrot.sourceforge.net/docs/toc.php [sourceforge.net]. If you don't understand the threading model, just say so, don't rag on it.
Here's a few benchmarks:
- Since we're talking about Ruby..let's compare Ruby and Java -> http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/benchmark.php?t
e st=all&lang=javaclient&lang2=ruby [debian.org]..whoa Ruby got smoked!
- Let's look at a few numerical benchmarks: http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=5602&page
= 3 [osnews.com]. Java doesn't do to hot on the trig part here but on all other parts of the test it's comparible to C++.
All problems with benchmarks aside. You can't say that you're thinking about using Python or Ruby instead of Java because Java's too slow. By their nature, interpeted languages are going to be much slower than compiled (even byte-code compiled) languages.Them's fighting words!! ;-) Please oh please stop spreading such lies though. Look, I just wrote a database app that's used for annotating video data in real time. Not only is it plenty fast enough but it's cross-platform. There's no platform specific code in it what-so-ever.
p.s. Happy Holidays
Re:A Humble Note (Score:1, Insightful)
Actually Java was pretty mediocre when it was released. Its oft-lauded standard library didn't contain much, the language itself was primitive, and its performance was poor. AWT was buggy, and threads had inconsistent behavior on different platforms. Compared to any of the commercial Smalltalk environments (of which the language is most closely related, rather than C++ which it shares fewer but syntactic similarities) it was a total piece of shit. The only thing it had going for it was that Java looked vaguely like C++, which meant that C programmers that wanted static typing without stepping off into a foreign syntax (ML, Eiffel, Ada,
It's by accident that Java begins to replace CGI on the server and obtains the niche that eventually leads it to the marketing-driven Enterprise Bullshit status that it now resides in. That portions of the work done on the implementation of the Self VM could be used for HotSpot is a nice side-effect that eventually makes Java faster.
The world is positively overflowing with languages at the time that are better than C++ in all of the ways that mattered to the Java programmer, except they didn't look like C++. This plus Sun's marketing the the "Will Java replace Windows?" hype makes Java--a mediocre technology--the winnarrrrr that is through billions of dollars forced into its position it occupies today.
And for the record, GCC wasn't that bad. It was actually one of the more compliant C++ compilers at the time. C++ is one of the most complex programming languages, so it's not all that surprising that developing a conformant implementation with decent performance has proven to be an arduous task.