I also hate Java ...

Post #48,025 by bluke 8/4/02 9:57:18 AM Reply	I also hate Java ... and I have been paying the bills with it for the past 5 years and I work at a company that is heavily invested in Java. Java is the Windows of programming languages. It looks nice but when you actually try to use it seriously it sucks. The Java type system is a joke, they still haven't delivered generics, and you can forget about them ever dealing with the primitive-object inconsistencies. The development model is still in the dark ages, with files, compile, deploy cycle, etc. With an OO language why are developers dealing with files and classpaths, etc. there should be a higher level abstraction (something like VA Java taken from Smalltalk) I come from a Smalltalk background, and when I look at the elegance of Smalltalk and compare it to Java, it makes me sick. The Java solution for so many problems is code generation. For example, the need for something like closures (blocks in Smalltalk) resulted in inner classes (not nearly as useful as Smalltalk blocks and much uglier) which are just a compiler trick. The upcoming generics support will again be a compiler trick, where the compiler will "magically" generate all the casts for you, whoopee. Java has contributed little or nothing original, it has taken bits and pieces from different places, unfortunately the wrong bits and pieces.
Post #48,034 by deSitter 8/4/02 11:10:03 AM Reply	Re: I also hate Java ... Java may be popular because the mediocre can hide out in it. I remember last year my officemate had an slow DB access problem. I told him I knew someone in Detroit who knew how to do things right - so we got on chat through IWETHEY and Scott pointed out all the wrong things to do - the very things this guy was doing. Now, my officemate seemded more than anything, scared (I was grinning with glee myself). He wasn't at all appreciative. He was more interested in his H1B status and buying expensive electronics. I'm so glad I don't have to deal with Java. -drl
Post #48,051 by tuberculosis 8/4/02 4:02:46 PM Reply	Blanchard's Law When code generation arises as a routine technique, it means your language lacks sufficient power of expression for coping with your problem domain. Corollary: Code generation should (almost) never be necessary in any sufficiently advanced programming environment. I am out of the country for the duration of the Bush administration. Please leave a message and I'll get back to you when democracy returns.
Post #48,272 by wharris2 8/5/02 9:30:54 PM Reply	Hate Java? I don't hate Java. I hate what Sun has done with Java. I've stopped bothering looking at the "bug list" on their Java site; doesn't do any good to vote up a bug for consideration anyway, does it? They'll just roll out another API of the week (likely as full of bugs as the last API) and close the bug report until someone submits a new bug report, which more than likely will be closed because it was fixed (not!) by the new API. Java applets, at the beginning, were an exciting concept. When it became evident that most implementations (including Sun's) were buggy as hell, somehow the emphesis changed to Java Enterprise (never mind all the useful stuff that might have been done with application Java). Except for its problems, Java Enterprise has been relatively successful. But on a much more limited scale, not the all-encompassing write-once run-anywhere stuff originally envisioned for Java. All in all, I'd rather program for fun and profit in Delphi even though I dislike Pascal. The lawyers would mostly rather be what they are than get out of the way even if the cost was Hammerfall. - Jerry Pournelle
Post #48,683 by bluke 8/8/02 11:17:52 AM Reply	I hate Java because of what it represents namely the triumph of junk through marketing over technical excellence. Java is a bunch of ideas taken from other languages cobbled together. Java was designed by people who had a very narrow viewpoint, namely C, C++, and Objective C. How could you design a language in the 1990's and not build in some form of Generic types? How could you build such a brain dead type system? Why primitive types? I could go one forever. Java 1.0 was absolutely useless. Here are some of the shortcomings that I can think of off the top of my head: 1. Idiotic event model (had to be changed in 1.1) 2. No reflection (had to be added in 1.1) 3. primitive types (which only gets worse when you add in reflection (which doesn't work well with primitive types), collections, and generics )see this link for a great paper on why primitive types are so bad [link\|http://www7.software.ibm.com/vad.nsf/Data/Document2712\|http://www7.softwar...Document2712] ) 4. No generics 5. No easy way to do proxies 6. no collections 7. No control over garbage collector (a little better now with Weak References) Based on this Java 1.0 was basically useless and should have been stillborn. However, the marketing machine is king and it didn't matter. Here is a great quote from one of the Java newsgroups: "The Java-Language-Design Research Algorithm, Unleashed: if (objective-C shows a way to do things better than C++) \t do that; else if (we really really hate this thing as C++ does it) \t/* do nothing */; else \tc++.copy_from_slavishly_without_much_more_thought; " For just about every feature that Java has you can find a better idea somewhere else. Just like Windows dominates the desktop even though it is a piece of junk, Java is dominating the programming language space even though it is a piece of junk. If I sound bitter it's because I am. I was a Smalltalk developer from 94-97 and absolutely loved the language, and now basically Java has killed Smalltalk. I have found many Java developers who would prefer to develop in another language (such as Smalltalk) if they could, I have not found any Smalltalk developers who prefer Java. It pains me greatly when I think of how much better things would be if Smalltalk had become the dominant language instead of Java.
Post #48,695 by tseliot 8/8/02 2:15:01 PM Reply	I have to agree. I hate the marketing hype. But for writing web-enabled business apps, it's a great tool, mostly because my HTML/JSP guy doesn't have to learn full-blown Java to get a benefit. Finisterre said that while he wanted to resolve the dispute with HP, he resented receiving DMCA threats. "We are like the guys that found out that Firestone tires have issues on Ford explorers," he said. "It's not our fault your Explorer has crap tires. We just pointed it out. We should not get attacked for pointing out issues in someone\ufffds product nor for proving it is possible." Many fears are born of stupidity and ignorance - Which you should be feeding with rumour and generalisation. BOfH, 2002 "Episode" 10

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