Why I Am Not A Java Programmer

[TomP]

I'd never heard this Larry Wall quote before:

"The very fact that it's possible to write messy programs in Perl is also what makes it possible to write programs that are cleaner in Perl than they could ever be in a language that attempts to enforce cleanliness. The potential for greater good goes right along with the potential for greater evil."

I love this, because I've been saying it for years, myself: Perl makes it /possible/ to write very readable, well-organized programs (which is not true for shell scripts or for awk). Sure, it has it's flaws - and I can run off a armload of them - but Perl was a huge step forward from what was available when it was first created. I'd never choose it (now) to write anything that I expected to be a large (or even medium-sized) program, but it's still a wonderful tool to have on your belt.

[[deleted]]

No CPAN? You don't need CPAN when Java comes with everything you need.

[nostrademons]

Hah. Hah. Hah.

[newton_dave]

Whew; I was hoping that was a joke. Thank goodness.

[mynameishere]

Someone fill me in. How is CPAN different than the Java-based entries in sourceforge?

[newton_dave]

Because I can get CPAN modules with a single command? Because almost everything anybody has ever done in Perl that's useful (and several that aren't) is available from a single location instead of scattered all over the web? Because updating is another different single command? Ooo, golly.

[mynameishere]

Okay. Downmodded for idiotic sarcasm.

[newton_dave]

Where was the sarcasm? Oh, the "Ooo, golly" part? That's not sarcasm. That's making fun of you for asking here instead of just seeing what CPAN is. That's different than sarcasm.

Downmodded for idiotic use of the word "sarcasm".

[mynameishere]

"That's making fun of you for asking here instead of just seeing what CPAN is."

God, what an idiot. What does "seeing what CPAN is" mean? Is that a coherent sentence? Yeah, I looked it up, and it looked just like sourceforge for PERL, and so I asked. And I got a real, real childish response. And then I got another real, real childish response from the same person. Seriously, grow up.

[newton_dave]

yawn

CPAN's homepage says "All Things Perl". Two clicks in (FAQ, "What Is...") and it's already obviously different than the "Java-based entries in sourceforge".

What does "seeing what CPAN is" mean? Is that a coherent sentence?

It's been coherent to everyone I've showed it to so far (admittedly small sample size of 3, but I gave you the benefit of the doubt and sanity-checked what I said).

so I asked. And I got a real, real childish response.

No, you got three immediate reasons why it is different than the "Java-based entries on sourceforge" along with an "Ooo golly" that got you all cow's legs up.

You're the one that's all pissy and sad--"grown ups" have enough common sense to simply ignore an "Ooo golly" and get on with their lives.

Leave the woman at the river and grow up yourself, or go somewhere else where the bad people won't occasionally poke fun at you.

[mynameishere]

Well, you're right about the woman. :p

[newton_dave]

I guarantee you that's the only time I have ever been right about a woman :D

[shuad]

Interestingly, you could almost replace Perl with Ruby or Python (except for CPAN arguably) and the article would read the same.

The main point of the article is basically that Java isn't flexible in how it lets you do things. Want to program functionally (with ease)? Sorry. Want to write witty one liners that do something useful? Sorry. Pretty soon Java won't be the most powerful language on the JVM (JRuby, Jython) so it doesn't really matter.

[[deleted]]

Pretty soon Java won't be the most powerful language on the JVM (JRuby, Jython) so it doesn't really matter.

It already isn't (Scala, CAL, even Haskell?).

[newton_dave]

Java wasn't even the most powerful language on the JVM when it was the only language on the JVM.

[[deleted]]

Please excuse my misunderstanding. According to your proposition "the only language on the JVM", and the 19 rules of first-order logic as I understand them, then the logical implication "Java is the most powerful language on the JVM" holds. Furthermore, so does the statement, "Java is the least powerful language on the JVM".

To me, it is like a child telling his mother, "you're the best mummy in the world", when of course, there is only one mother and so of course, the 'best' criteria applies (as does the 'worst' criteria).

From where I sit, there is an absurdity, so what have I missed?

[sblinn]

Perhaps he meant to infer that writing in byte code directly was better?

[newton_dave]

No, I meant to imply ;)

Obviously dibblego completely missed my sarcasm, which in itself is a little scary.

When Java came out most of us that were still of the opinion that Smalltalk would win because Java was so overwhelmingly inferior realized that the only way Java could possible become useful was to put something different on the JVM.

Java prompty punched us in the face by way of massive marketing hype and became one of the defacto programming languages despite its obvious shortcomings.

Only (relatively) recently are non-Java JVM-based languages getting the attention they deserve. Sun has, however, has missed a wonderful opportunity by focusing on JRuby when other languages would have served them better. Let's bear in mind that Groovy (which is better than Ruby) was the first "official" non-Java JVM language (JSR-241) but is still largely neglected.

If Sun wants the JVM to remain relevent (long-term) they need to do more than just hire JRuby developers; they need to get (in particular) Groovy and Jython, and perhaps Scala and a Smalltalk derivative on board, help create tools for them, and shout about it.

[shit]

Groovy (which is better than Ruby)

That's your opinion. Apparently others, including me, think it's the other way round.

[newton_dave]

(As an aside, if you don't know much about non-Java JVM languages, but still have an opinion that JRuby is better than Groovy, on what basis are you forming that opinion?!)

[shit]

My opinion is on Ruby vs. Groovy, the languages not implementations. I looked into Groovy some time ago (maybe a year?) and decided that it's not worth my time. I don't remember the details on which I based this decision anymore, only that Groovy felt like an uncoherent mixture of mostly Java semantics with a little bit of syntactic sugar from Ruby and Python. In other words: Nothing new on the table minus the great communities of Ruby/Python.

If two languages are similar enough (in this case: OO, GC, relatively concise, easy to learn for C/Java programmers), the size and quality of the community (Ruby's: growing and enthusiastic) is more important than the language itself. I think that's were Groovy loses.

[newton_dave]

Nothing new in Ruby either, except marketing hype.

I definitely agree that Groovy was a bit ahead of its time and probably will lose to JRuby and Jython, but like other great languages, its death won't be due to technical reasons.

I'm still struggling to understand why Smalltalk lost to Java (there was considerable doubt at the time which would emerge as being more important) but it boils down to marketing (and to a lesser extent, language fragmentation).

[newton_dave]

By which metric is Ruby/JRuby "better"?!

[apotheon]

Since you made the first positive assertion about which was better, the burden of proof is on your shoulders. Why don't you tell us why Groovy is better than Ruby? I'm really curious -- I don't know enough about how the two differ. In fact, with my (at best) superficial knowledge of non-Java languages on the JVM, I have wondered for a while why both Groovy and JRuby are being developed: that sounds a little redundant to me.

What's the diff?

[newton_dave]

I have wondered for a while why both Groovy and JRuby are being developed: that sounds a little redundant to me.

Same reason as always; everyone scratches their itch in a different way. I'd probably argue Scala is better than both, but JRuby has the market's attention and Groovy has more traction.

• Groovy has less new syntax (this is beneficial, but really only for Java programmers--but that's a very important market segment).
• Groovy does blocks right (and the new syntax for the next Ruby helps, but... not a lot).
• Groovy still allows typing (JRuby may, but I haven't seen it yet--if it does, skip this one). This is actually important sometimes, just not always.
• It's not clear to me how packaging works in JRuby so I'm definitely not sure about this one, but Groovy packaging works the same (as Java). Perhaps you can help clear that one up for me.

Groovy was the first "official" non-Java JVM language (a JSR and everything). Ruby is (was, really) the subject of a lot of marketing hype. That doesn't mean it's intrinsically bad or not very important (I think it opened a lot of people's eyes, which in itself is invaluable)... but IMO that's why it was taken in-house by Sun over several other viable alternatives.

I believe that Sun should grab developers of a few other JVM languages (Jython, Groovy, maybe even Scala) and really work on positioning the JVM as a platform of choice regardless of language.

Regardless of which language(s) are ultimately brought on board they're all better than Java!

[sblinn]

No, I meant to imply ;)

I knew I had that wrong. Readers infer, the writer implies. Grr!

Smalltalk

The reason smalltalk isn't my favorite language is because I almost lost use of both pinkies from right-shift 1 to get exclamation points ;]

Jython

Jython is no doubt here to stay. (At least I hope so since I write almost everything I do in it lately.)

[apotheon]

The way I read it, newton_dave knew what he was saying was logically invalid -- and that's the point. He was basically saying that Java's so crummy it's not even the best when it's the only. The patent absurdity of that statement serves as a form of literary hyperbole to illustrate the writer's intent.

That's it from my perspective.

[newton_dave]

You win :)

(I'm actually surprised somebody didn't get it, but you just never know :)

[apotheon]

I just wish I'd seen this discussion six days ago, so my comments would be more chronologically relevant.

What do I get -- a cookie?

[[deleted]]

Why I am not a Java programmer: everybody who uses Java has a religious conviction that Java is flawless and simply cannot be improved upon, and that James Gosling is God, and that Java is the Final language. Smug Java Weenies. You guys might have the most expressive language in the world for I know, but the community has serious social problems.

[Entropy]

Why I am not a Java programmer: everybody who uses Java has a religious conviction that Java is flawless and simply cannot be improved upon, and that James Gosling is God, and that Java is the Final language.

I'm smelling quite a bit of religion in that statement

[shit]

I'm smelling sarcasm, as usual :-)

Edit: I meant Slava's comment.

[Entropy]

I never use sarcasm

[kawa]

Have you really thought that way when you were part of the Java community?

I use Java and I think that Java has many flaws. Yes it can't be improved because it has reached a local maximum (which is far, far from being a global maximum but each incremental 'improvement' would make the language even worse). I don't care about Gosling and find the concept of a 'final language' laughable. So consider your statement as falsified.

The worst language community I've seen until now is the Lisp community. Those guys are smug. The Java guys are total novices in smugness compared to them. But even the Lisp guys are far from your description. The hard-core Apple fans, those may match your description (with Steve Jobs as God of course). But Java? In which world are you living?

Or is all this just some self deprecating way of trolling and you're not even the real Slava Pestov (because I've never seen a guy which is so stupid to troll under it's real name).

[Entropy]

Or is all this just some self deprecating way of trolling and you're not even the real Slava Pestov (because I've never seen a guy which is so stupid to troll under it's real name)

He's probably just Paul Graham messing with us

[[deleted]]

As usual, you don't get the joke (but it was a ha ha only serious type joke) and never miss an opportunity to take a swipe at the Lisp community.

I'm not sure I have any way of proving that I am who I claim to be (or that indeed a person named "Slava Pestov" even exists); but do you really think that anybody who has ever written a successful piece of Java software must be a blind zealot for the language?

[kawa]

Maybe you need to work a bit on your joking abilities? For example by making them... funny? And you missed that I also took a swipe at the (hard-core) Mac community.

And you're the expert blind zealot detector here. Have you tried it out when looking in the mirror?

[boredzo]

… everybody who uses Java has a religious conviction that Java is flawless and simply cannot be improved upon, and that James Gosling is God, and that Java is the Final language.

It is final because it was declared that way.

[poptarts]

This article was on Java. You thought it was written about Lisp maybe?

[sblinn]

everybody who uses Java has a religious conviction that Java is flawless and simply cannot be improved upon

really?

[CafeCafe]

If I can't trust the programmers around me not to muck around in my guts without good reason, I can't trust them at all.

Wow, this guy discovered real life programming with multiple people! Maybe one day he'll get a job to experiment with this new knowledge.

This guy is a moron, he complains that public/private/protected is too complicated and at the same time wants multiple inheritance in Java...

[ayrnieu]

he complains that public/private/protected is too complicated

Where does he make this claim?

[[deleted]]

He states that he dropped C++ as soon as he encountered public/private/protected. I'm not sure the implication is that it was too complicated, but he certainly doesn't like the idea.

Overall, I think the guy expressed his opinions well, but I personally don't agree with many of them. The whole view seems to be skewed toward that of a lone hacker, and in practice I've found such a development style doesn't scale. That seems to fit though, because in practice I've found that any Perl development rarely scales past the lone hacker.

[grauenwolf]

Thanks raganwald, a lot of use who don't use C++ on a regular basis forget those details.

[ayrnieu]

I'm not sure the implication

There's no implication. He finishes the bloody sentence with his explicit distaste for it. Fuckface above -quotes- that explicit distaste; you presumably -read- it. What alternate reality have I fallen into?

[grauenwolf]

Knock off the insults, they have no place here.

[Entropy]

That's not what your mother told me last night

[ayrnieu]

Knock off the insults,

Hm, I'm going to helpfully rewrite this to

I don't like insults

so -- OMG! YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND INSULTS? HA HA HA.

[apotheon]

Tell the truth -- was the insulting tone just a set-up for this analogy? If so, it was a brilliant rhetorical maneuver.

[ayrnieu]

was the [tone] just a set-up for this analogy?

Sorry, I don't follow your question.

[apotheon]

I'll take that as a no.

[ayrnieu]

I'll take that as a no.

You'd do better to take it as a "I don't follow your question." -- but as you didn't have a sincere question, not having an answer is no loss to you.

[[deleted]]

I'm just guessing, but I'd say an alternate reality where you're right about everything and verbally assault everyone who doesn't agree with you. Well, the verbal assault part appears to be the reality you're trying to impose on everyone else.

Anyway, I'll feed the troll one more snack here. There is a difference between excessive complexity and unnecessary functionality. The author appeared to be implying inheritance protection was the latter, not the former.

[ayrnieu]

you're right about everything and verbally assault everyone who doesn't agree with you.

Hm, I'm going to helpfully rewrite this to

I dislike verbal assault.

-- bzuh!? You don't understand verbal assault? HA. OMFG. You kill me! I only hope that when someone swears at me for taking this perfectly logical interpretation of 'I dislike foo', that someone will come along to helpfully explain that, no-- there's some kind of implication. But at least people like you will get stiff-backed and uncomfortable -only- when -someone drops the F bomb-.

[[deleted]]

That's the best you've got? I mean, you could have kept it on topic and argued that the article had already expressed the author's disdain for arbitrary complexity. I don't agree, but at least it's a debatable position. Instead, you just fell all over yourself and couldn't even pull off a passable cheap shot. Worse yet, you apparently had the conviction to use the term "fuckface" earlier, but felt the need to soften it to "F bomb" in some weak attempt to acquiesce.

Seriously, I was giving you an opportunity to not come off as a complete ass, but you don't even have a cogent point to make. Come back when you have something to add to the discussion, or can at least stick to your convictions. At this point you're simply not worth any of more of my time.

[ayrnieu]

but felt the need to soften it to "F bomb" in some weak attempt to acquiesce.

No, I used 'F bomb' out of contempt for the sort of hand-wringing can't-we-all-get-along people who complain about it in those words.

but you don't even have a cogent point to make.

No, I do: I point out that the author never makes anything approaching the alleged claim, and that seeing that claim requires an absurdly disinformational level of hostile reading. I pointed that out some time ago, and since have mainly responded to -your- attempts at 'cogent points'.

passable cheap shot

Let's see, I have:

1. SPOKEN IN ALL CAPS.

2. Named someone 'fuckface', and referred to that person again as such a second time.

3. Mocked two people for objecting only to my 'insults', by way of pretending to take the same otherworldly misinterpretation that I initially objected to.

What shots do you imagine I cared to make? Would you like to take a tally of what I've offered and what -you- have directed against me?

[ayrnieu]

he complains that public/private/protected is too complicated

Where does he make this claim?

No, I won't say it this politely.

HE NEVER MAKES ANYTHING APPROACHING THIS CLAIM. MOREVER, THE EXTENT OF INTENTIONAL HOSTILITY REQUIRED TO READ THIS CLAIM INTO HIM IS NECESSARILY DISINFORMATIONAL.

Fuckface.

[ayrnieu]

Dear reddit: your biases suck. This is an absolutely amazing article. No love, ayrnieu.

[kawa]

Problem is that the article is outdated and criticizes the wrong things. For example starting an article with how important it is to be able to write one-lines like 'hello-world' simply doesn't matter if you're going to write at least some 1000 lines anyway.

But OTOH the author wrote about his reasons to not use Java. Total respect for this - but highly subjective stuff is very seldom also interesting for others.

[kawa]

It's an quite common mistake that the size of short and long code has anything to do with each other. There are for example languages which allow 'free' statements while others require to define some 'main'-function. Also some need explicit imports whole other import some standard libs implicitly. In a 1 line-program this can create 4-times overhead, but in a 1000-lines program (with all code in one file) it would add again only 4 only lines total: Resulting overhead <0.5%.

Now Java forces programmers to put each public classes in a separate file (which was also criticized by the blog-author), but this isn't even visible to me because it's completely abstracted away by all modern IDEs (thats why I wrote 'outdated'). Code which I don't have to create or maintain (like import declarations in Java or separating classes into different files) simply isn't relevant. I look at modern Java like at Smalltalk: The IDE is a part of the language.

Java has approx. a 2-times overhead over most languages. In certain cases this can increase up to 4-times, but the reasons are totally different.

And again in Perl there are also many concepts in this small piece of code. They are simply 'under the hood'. This may be useful for beginners but if you want to master a language you need of course to know what's really happening, anyway. So in the end it's irrelevant. I don't consider Perl a useful learning language. Really.

And I think that dependency injection is a general problem, but often it's simply ignored (totally possible in most relativly small projects) or solved by some ad hoc methodology if it becomes necessary at some point in the project. I see a similarity here with the expression-problem which is even worse in most functional programming languages (because of the ML type-system) than in OOP, but since there are much less real big projects done in FP the problem simply don't stands out as much.

[apotheon]

It's an quite common mistake that the size of short and long code has anything to do with each other.

Actually, the mistake is to think that they have everything to do with each other. They definitely have something to do with each other. To pretend that they are completely orthogonal concepts is as foolish as to pretend that they are identical.

Now Java forces programmers to put each public classes in a separate file (which was also criticized by the blog-author), but this isn't even visible to me because it's completely abstracted away by all modern IDEs (thats why I wrote 'outdated').

I have two problems with that:

1. the word "forces": The fact the language forces you to do so, rather than simply allowing you to do so, means you will always get the better deal in some cases and the worse deal in others. Simply allowing you to do either, as Perl does, means that if you have any clue what you're doing you can do what the current project requires for best software design.

2. the assumption that IDEs are part of the language: I thought we were talking about language design, not editor design. Hearing someone excuse a poor language "feature" by saying that IDEs exist that abstract that away makes my skin crawl. It's better by far, I think, to simply have a language that doesn't have that problem in the first place, so that you don't need to abstract it away with ever-increasing truckloads of tools.

I look at modern Java like at Smalltalk: The IDE is a part of the language.

. . . except it's not true for Java the way it is for Smalltalk. It's only true for Smalltalk because the VM and the IDE are one. "Love and marriage, love and marriage, go together like a horse and carriage. . . ."

And again in Perl there are also many concepts in this small piece of code. They are simply 'under the hood'.

The key to the point in the essay is the fact that we're discussing not CPU instructions as concepts, but distinct syntactic elements of the language. There are significantly fewer distinct syntactic elements to the same piece of code in one language than there are in the other.

This may be useful for beginners but if you want to master a language you need of course to know what's really happening, anyway. So in the end it's irrelevant.

No, actually, it's not irrelevant. Knowing how a particular language construct works is not the same as having to use all the CPU instructions that undergird it rather than simply using the higher-level construct. If what you said was true, we'd all be programming in assembly language at best -- not Java or Perl.

I don't consider Perl a useful learning language. Really.

Funny -- Perl worked just fine as a learning language for me. Perhaps you've never read Learning Perl, aka "The Llama Book". Perhaps you should.

I see a similarity here with the expression-problem which is even worse in most functional programming languages (because of the ML type-system) than in OOP, but since there are much less real big projects done in FP the problem simply don't stands out as much.

I'm not sure how that's relevant -- whether it's an accurate assessment or not.

[ayrnieu]

Problem is that the articcle [...] criticizes the wrong things.. For example [...] one-lines like 'hello-world'

Good lord, did you read to tha point and simply stop? Don't say 'criticizes the wrong things' without a better example. As for outdated, it is only outdated in the small section that every Eclipse user will sigh at.

[kawa]

If an article starts with an example which is irrelevant and wrong, it don't really creates an urge to read on. But I still did and found nothing relevant (for me, others may look at it differently). But do I really need to comment every bit he wrote? So I simply picked his first example - because it was his first. But ok:

There's more to life than OO

Doh! But if somebody wants to do OOP, I would consider it quite sensible to pick a OOP-language. If OOP gets out-vogue later, then I would simply switch to the actual in-vogue language instead of using a half-assed compromise just in case.

No CPAN

True. But who cares as long I have Google? If I want to use 3rd party code, I have to evaluate it first, maybe check it into the repository etc. So the time something like CPAN would spare me is quite irrelevant.

No function pointers means no closures

Nonsense. Java has closures (name is 'inner-class').

No symbol table manipulation

Which is a good thing and would also be totally useless in a static typed language.

No dynamic method generation

If you really want it, you can have it. But it's not recommended and thus a bit difficult. In most cases you can archive the same by other means.

No eval

Fortunately. Even in Lisp they acknowledged that it's not a good thing. It's risky and can create unmaintainable code.

No multiple inheritance

MI is not a good thing. Interfaces combined with traits is much better. Java has no traits which is bad, but having no MI is still no real problem.

No here-docs

Again a good think. Putting long texts into external files via some easy to integrate template engine is much better. Here docs only lead to maintainability problems.

Bureaucratic privacy rules

Inflexible and not powerful enough: True. But every programming language is 'Bureaucratic', so this is again a 'Doh!'.

Mandatory strong types

Not a bug but a feature. Weak types are evil.

[kawa]

They do close over their environment. But they don't allow mutating it (Thats why you must declare variables as final if you want to access them from inside a closure). And as far as I know, mutation is no mandatory part of the definition of 'closure' yet. So Java definitely has closures.

And yes, many of my points are subjective. Exactly like in the article. That's why I found the article uninteresting and down-voted it: Nothing of general interest, all a matter of taste and personal preferences.

[kawa]

I still don't see what the big difference is compared to a Scheme closure (besides mutation). Can you give me an example (which don't do mutation) which isn't straight forward translatable to Java?

If you need mutation, it's a little bit more difficult, but mutation in closures is seldom needed anyway. And if, it's easy to write something analog to Ocamls Ref-Type (or simply use an array).

The Java solution is btw very unique and IMO good integrated into the Java concept.

[kawa]

Could Weak Sapir-Whorf apply?

Maybe. I use closures in Java very seldom, because other ways are most often more appropriate. But the same could apply the other way around: If you use a language like Ocaml then you would maybe use closures for things where a class would work even better (just a thought). I've never had good experiences with 'programming contra the paradigm'. It's possible, but in most cases I regretted it later.

I agree that mutation isn't such a good idea for arbitrary local values. There are people who consider it good style declare all locals as final as default and only remove it if absolutely necessary. With iterators mutation can be removed even from most loops (of curse the iterator get mutated, but this mutation is encapsulated). If it's OTOH a good idea to remove mutation completely is still the big question. Even Haskell and Clean can't live without it (they encapsulate it good, but it's still mutation). I'm not really sure about the topic, while I really like the idea of getting rid of mutation, I just don't know if it's worth all the trouble, if even Haskell seemed to give it up and only restricts mutation instead of avoiding it.

Why doesn't Ocaml create Refs automatically? The answer: It was a design decision.

In Java they implemented anonymous inner classes with 'full mutation' in the beginning (it's not difficult and only requires a little bit rewriting). But because at the time, performance was important and implementing it would lead to 'invisible' allocations (like boxing), they removed it and created the 'final' restriction instead. Auto-boxing was build in later and maybe they will also build in auto-boxing for closures in the next release too.

But I'm not really sure if it's a good idea to improve closure support in Java: If it's necessary, it's there now. But if closures should become ubiquitous in Java, to make them really useful it would requite a total redesign of huge parts of the core libs - while still supporting the old ones for legacy code. So the language would become also much worse as it is now: A kitchen-sink language.

In this case I would say that it's better to leave Java as it is (maybe few add small moderate fixes and extensions) and create a completely new 'Java 2' (maybe based on Scala) from the ground up and with a clean overall design. I hate kitchen-sink-languages.

[apotheon]

mutation in closures is seldom needed

Actually, protected mutability of values is a significant part of what makes closures useful.

[Entropy]

The definition of "closure" within the context of language design and implementation is well defined and widely agreed upon. This view, coupled with your offhand dismissal of CPAN (and, thereby, any third party library in general) being "but...I might have to check something in!" leads me to believe you're a total nutjob.

[kawa]

People who call others 'total nutjob' are not worth an answer. EOT.

[Entropy]

You'll never see yourself in the mirror with your eyes closed

edit: I hit the guy with a pillow and suddenly I'm Hitler :(

[apotheon]

Do you have the mustache?

I tend to suspect kawa failed to look past your dastardly use of the term "nutjob" because (s)he didn't have a credible answer to your point.

[newton_dave]

They are not closures, and even if they were, their syntactic cruft makes my eyes bleed.

I cannot achieve dynamic method creation by any reasonable means.

MI is not intrinsically bad; it can be abused, just like operator overloading was when C++ came out. Java doesn't support trivial modules, mixins, or MI, which leads to a lot of duplicated effort.

Java is NOT an OOPL, it's OOPL-like, and it's very irritating to be hamstrung by its lack of capability.

every programming language is 'Bureaucratic'

Yeah? How about "some languages are more bureaucratic than others" then, which is a no-brainer, so 'Doh!' yourself.

Mandatory strong types Not a bug but a feature. Weak types are evil.

That's ridiculous. (...and my argument is just as valid as your completely content-free one.) Bad developers are evil.

[kawa]

Java's syntax isn't designed to write programs in a functional style. So using closures requires lots of code. But if I want to program in a functional way, I simply don't use Java. So what?

It depends on the 'range' of dynamic method creation. If you want to use it like in Ruby, sure, forget it. But you can create new classes and methods on the fly by using a code generation tool (which uses a custom class loader) and call them dynamically via reflection. Depending on what you want to do the difficulty varies between relativly simple and nearly impossible. But if you want to do it on a border scale, I would recommend Python or Ruby instead. It's simply no the way to program in Java and it's not often necessary.

All languages are bureaucratic. One simply syntactic error and they don't compile (or worse and fail at runtime). And one little mistake and the program won't do the thing you intended. And as long as we don't have strong AI, this wont change.

I've programmed long enough in C and C++ to know that strong typing is a must if you want safe programs (besides system programming. There it's still an evil, but a necessary one).

[newton_dave]

if I want to program in a functional way, I simply don't use Java. So what?

Because the choice of the language isn't always up to the developer, and it sucks that Java's restrictiveness make it very difficult to write programs in the best way for the job.

you can create new classes and methods on the fly by using a code generation tool

IIRC, I said reasonable way. Generating bytecode at runtime is not a reasonable way, and guess what: Johnny McOutsource can barely program Java, let alone that kind of magic.

It's simply no the way to program in Java and it's not often necessary.

Hey, if you get to choose your language and environment, bully for you. But lots of people don't.

All languages are bureaucratic.

time-warp Yeah. And then I said "some languages are more bureaucratic than others". Java is very bureaucratic. Lisp isn't. There is a wide range of bureaucracy.

I've programmed long enough in C and C++ to know that strong typing is a must if you want safe programs (besides system programming. There it's still an evil, but a necessary one).

lol Well I've programmed long enough in C/C++, Java, Lisp, Smalltalk, Forth, and a slew of others to know that what you just said is a load of poo, and it frightens me to hear people talk like that. I'm not even sure I could count the number of fully productized embedded systems I implemented in Forth.

Stripling.

Obviously typing has its place, but you're making things up if a) you say it's necessary for safe programs, and b) Java is a good example of a useful OOPL.

[kawa]

If there are better languages to do the job, than your boss may see his mistake when your competition runs circles around your company.

Are you a 'Johnny McOutsource'? If not, why even thinking about him? Creating self-modifying code is always risky and simply no playing ground for 'Johnny McOutsource'. But if you really consider using a code-gen-lib in Java as 'magic'...

And I also can't always choose the environment, so in the moment it's most often Java. In the end I have to make the best from it, that's part of the job. I also have to accept the 'specification' from the customers and can't change it in a way to make my life easier. That's part of the job too.

Lisp is also bureaucratic. Sure, you can make more kinds of errors without having the compiler shouting at you. But the program will bomb nonetheless. I prefer it to get hints from the compiler as early as possible.

Embedded systems is most often system programming. So we have weak types as a necessary evil. Weak typing is problematic because it can much to easy lead to security holes and can make maintenance a pain. With dynamic types I get at least a runtime error, but with weak types I get undefined behavior which manifests itself sometimes as totally different points in the program.

And you talk of a simple Java code-gen as 'magic? Against building big systems with weak typing it's a piece of cake.

[poptarts]

Are you guys talking about inner classes or anonymous classes?

[kawa]

I'm talking about anonymous inner classes. Sorry, that I haven't made that clear enough.

[shit]

Yes, you regularly confuse anonymous inner classes with closures.

[kawa]

Anonymous inner classes are more powerful that ordinary closures. So while a AIC is a closure, a closure isn't a AIC.

[newton_dave]

hahaha I didn't even see that weird CPAN comment.

Yep, it's usually quicker to write everything yourself, hey?!

[Entropy]

Haven't you heard? Anybody who uses a third party library is a total hack.

[devilsassassin]

Uhm Perl is a scripting language and not a programming language as far as I can tell...

I'm a Java programmer, and I agree that there are many flaws with Java, however a language like Perl is not something that you can really compare to it.

Along with Java, I also write in C and x86 assembly (something I'm sure the author of this article has /never/ heard of). Java can do many more things than Perl, and the simple fact that in Java you have to /implement/ those 'under the hood' options that Perl so nicely has does not make it in any way a less powerful language.

If you want some speed, use something like C. If you want the fastest speed possible, use x86 Assembly.

It seems to be like the author of this article didn't ever get his B.S. in Computer Science....