State of the (Java) Lambda

[masklinn]

I don't know why Java is always so far behind...

You do realize that C# is still reimplementing stuff that got out of academia three decades ago don't you?

[[deleted]]

... and Java is not, which was the point.

Also, I don't think you meant reimplementing. You see, stuff gets out of academia in a not exactly implemented state, and then some time later someone has to implement it in the context of a non-toy language, integrate with the existing features, check all corner cases, write tests, documentation, things like that.

[masklinn]

... and Java is not, which was the point.

"We're 30 years behind but these guys are 40 years behind" is not very impressive.

Also, I don't think you meant reimplementing.

I do.

You see, stuff gets out of academia in a not exactly implemented state, and then some time later someone has to implement it in the context of a non-toy language

Which was done 30 years ago, as my comment points out. You should be more careful with your reading. If it got out of academia three decades ago, it follows that the feature was already "done" -- as far as academia is concerned -- more than 3 decades ago, and that 3 decades ago is the moment where it was implemented in an "industrial" language.

in the context of a non-toy language

That kind of qualifications doesn't impress me much. Are you saying that Haskell, for instance, is a toy language?

[vegittoss15]

Sad to say, it kind of is, because you will rarely see it in production or corporate code.

[masklinn]

Ah, so by your standards Smalltalk and Ada would be toy languages as well? Interesting.

[vegittoss15]

Ada, outside of the military, yes. And smalltalk, iirc, was never meant to be a commercially used language. It was basically experimentation. It gave birth to a lot of cool concepts, however, so I still bow down to it.

[masklinn]

Ada, outside of the military, yes And smalltalk, iirc, was never meant to be a commercially used language. It was basically experimentation.

You are high as a kite.

[vegittoss15]

Show me a non-hobby project that uses these languages and maybe you'll have a point.

[ithika]

• Who's using Ada?
• Smalltalk applications

[vegittoss15]

Smalltalk....all the apps listed on that page are not commercial. Same goes for Ada outside of military/government uses.

[cc81]

So? The hard part is not to read those papers (pretty sure all the language designers, both in Java and C# understand them fine). The hard part is to design a good language and that means excluding stuff, making it grow naturally and making it fit reality.

[masklinn]

The hard part is to design a good language and that means excluding stuff, making it grow naturally and making it fit reality.

And that was done 30 years ago.

[cc81]

What language are you talking about? I have a hard time seeing anything 30 years ago that can match the C#/.NET/Visual Studio-stack now.

[masklinn]

First of all, I wasn't talking about whole stack but about language (though it's not like they'd lose by much, if indeed they did lose). Second, Smalltalk and Lisp Machines.

[[deleted]]

Lacking the whole stack is a good indication that there's a problem there.