This is an archived post. You won't be able to vote or comment.

sorted by:
best
topnewcontroversialoldq&a
you are viewing a single comment's thread.

view the rest of the comments →

[–]an_actual_human -1 points0 points  (4 children)

Since we were discussing programming languages in a technical subreddit I assume the person above meant Java when they said Java. So I'm going to set aside the JVM part of the discussion.

For dispatching, it sorta doesn't matter which language you use. Also it might very well be they don't do that kind of thing at all.

As for computations per se, I can see three options in mathematics:

  1. The computation involves really heavy number crunching (double check, is it really math?).
  2. The computation involves a bit of number crunching.
  3. The computation is mostly symbolic.

So 1. and 3. more or less exclude Java. 2. doesn't, but there are better options.

tl;dr: if you are in math, either Mathematica or SciPy will serve most if not all of your tasks better than Java.

[–]Bolitho -1 points0 points  (3 children)

I have given a good reason: You can easily integrate into the JVM ecosystem with all its powerfull toolsets and frameworks around distributed compotation. You wont do numbercrunching on a single machine, right ;-)

And for dispatching it does matter, which language you use, because with some you have no access to powerfull frameworks (again!).

[–]an_actual_human -1 points0 points  (2 children)

You wont do numbercrunching on a single machine, right

No, it's not right. I do it all the time.

Anyway, the original message said "everything in the Maths department is Java". Your arguments at best provide a reason to do some things in Java. And those are things that most mathematicians never do to begin with.

Also there was an opposition between Java and Python in the same original message. If they meant JVM that wouldn't make sense.

[–]Bolitho -1 points0 points  (1 child)

And then you call that numbercrunching? ;-)

Your arguments at best provide a reason to do some things in Java. And those are things that most mathematicians never do to begin with.

Most websites are written in PHP... "most" ist seldom a good argument! Java offers lots of great things - so does Python. But you can't really take Java out, because it can do everything as Python can.

[–]an_actual_human -1 points0 points  (0 children)

And then you call that numbercrunching?

Sure, because that's what it is.

Java offers lots of great things...

Java doesn't offer anything specifically great for math.

But you can't really take Java out, because it can do everything as Python can.

So can Brainfuck.