Java was "hot"

Post #51,474 by broomberg 9/11/02 11:16:06 PM Reply	Java was "hot" Not because it was used, but because people who did not know it thought it SHOULD be used. It was hyped out the wazzoo. Many companies started projects in it, and failed, or abandoned the projects. Too many companies were chasing a limited pool or programmers. And new programmers in ANY language aren't usually very good. So I bet a lot of companies got burned on Java projects. Also, note that job "openings" do not equate to jobs. If we have a job, we might advertise it several places, notify head hunters, etc. How does that show up in these type of stats? I could not find the original data. If 10 short term Java projects are in process, and there are 9 Java programmers, and they start poaching from each other, that would equate to 10 job openings. There could be 100 long term C++ projects going, keeping 100 C++ programmers employed, without a lot of movement. Which would show up as NO openings. "Openings" are total bullshit. Also, Java can be used for simple little web front ends, as well as "real" processing. So a Java project could be 2 weeks for the front end. C++ projects would NEVER be just 2 weeks.
Post #51,560 by tuberculosis 9/12/02 5:10:12 PM 8/21/07 6:40:26 AM Reply	What an opening "C++ projects would NEVER be just 2 weeks." Well of course not. You can't get a correctly written "Hello World" done in C++ in 2 weeks. I mean, there's all the constructors, and the destructors, and then either implementation or hiding of the copy constructors and the operator= just to have a minimally correct class, plus the memory management profiling and all that time spent with purify reconciling the different object ownership policies in the vendor libraries. Thats if you don't use templates. If you use templates, well god help you. I'm only half kidding. I think Java is a garbage dump. But C++ is the Love Canal of application development environments. 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. Edited by tuberculosis Aug. 21, 2007, 06:40:26 AM EDT Expand All History
Post #51,562 by admin 9/12/02 5:21:07 PM Reply	Don't forget... ... if the vendor library used Forte to compile, and you're using gcc, all the name mangling will be wrong... Regards, -scott anderson "Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
Post #51,610 by tuberculosis 9/13/02 5:02:44 AM 8/21/07 6:41:31 AM Reply	Yes but C++ encourages open source! Because you can never count on getting compatible binaries. Actually, so does [link\|http://jode.sourceforge.net/\|Java]. Its getting harder and harder to rely on compilation to protect intellectual property - which I think is good - since I'm in favor of Lessig's 10 year copyright limitation for software and requirement to escrow and publish source. 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. Edited by tuberculosis Aug. 21, 2007, 06:41:31 AM EDT Expand All History
Post #51,699 by deSitter 9/13/02 9:05:41 PM Reply	Re: Yes but C++ encourages open source! At first I interpreted your message to mean "I don't expect compilers to agree on code." Is that what you meant? If so, then that's really F.Ued. -drl
Post #51,705 by boxley 9/13/02 9:57:28 PM Reply	long been that way I remember an app speced by one party that was to be flogged to a 3rd party who found out and wanted the source as it was their security system. Without going into details the app was built partly in c partly in gnu c with api's to bison. After the dust settled and the source xfred the new guy never could compile the code even though he had instructions as which went where. thanx, bill will work for cash and other incentives [link\|http://home.tampabay.rr.com/boxley/Resume.html\|skill set] [link\|http://home.tampabay.rr.com/boxley/index.html\|boxley's home page] qui mori didicit servire dedidicit
Post #51,698 by deSitter 9/13/02 9:03:12 PM Reply	That's Hideous -drl
Post #51,585 by wharris2 9/12/02 9:17:31 PM Reply	Java was "hot" (add outsourcing?) Oh gawd. Company I'm with outsourced an EJB application to an Indian company that, apparently, didn't know any more than we did about Java. Deliverable: yesterday, I saw a 400-line class that coulda been reduced to maybe 10 lines of code if anyone had known what the hell they were doing. (a) Outsourcing to an organization that didn't have a clue about our product. I wasn't involved directly, usually, but my involvement still featured endless time-wasting meetings while we tried to overcome culture differences and backgrounds. Not only did we get crap code, they never really "got" it. (b) Not learning from previous mistakes (e.g., this company had done similar with a Visual Basic application, hiring consultants who were really learning-on-the-job and delivered a piss-poor badly documented (har, documentation?) shit.) (c) Few programmers in this company learned anything about the applications in either (a) or (b); more like we got crappy code and didn't know enough to properly evaluate it as crap until we devoted more resources to the code than we would have had to than if we'd developed it ourselves. Or if we'd had real Java or Visual Basic experts developing it, not just wannabes. The lawyers would mostly rather be what they are than get out of the way even if the cost was Hammerfall. - Jerry Pournelle
Post #51,614 by static 9/13/02 7:28:52 AM Reply	Interesting comments. We have an Indian programmer working on our code. I talk with him most days on ICQ. I had some concerns about his experience and capability, but perhaps my standards are very high. Amongst other things, we have an extensive API of our own for manipulating the application data and building our web-based pages. Apparantly he had never see this done before... :-/ Wade. "Ah. One of the difficult questions."
Post #51,982 by wharris2 9/16/02 10:57:43 PM Reply	Wince we have an extensive API of our own for manipulating the application data and building our web-based pages. Apparantly he had never see this done before... :-/ Recipe for disaster, IMO, but then what do I know? (the only thing I know is how much I don't know. :=( :=) The lawyers would mostly rather be what they are than get out of the way even if the cost was Hammerfall. - Jerry Pournelle
Post #52,003 by static 9/17/02 7:06:35 AM Reply	Which way? The use of our own API, or that he seemed not to have seen this before? Wade. "Ah. One of the difficult questions."
Post #52,017 by wharris2 9/17/02 10:25:46 AM Reply	Re: Which way? The idea that the concept of an API would be foreign to anyone doing any sort of programming during the past ten or fifteen years. Home-built API's, or libraries, or whatever your terminology is - well, you want to avoid duplicating someone else's work, but there's frequently room for your own layers. Curses is a standard Unix terminal library, but I'm not sure I'd want to use the bare-bones library.
Post #52,143 by static 9/18/02 12:59:21 AM Reply	Yes, that's what I thought you meant. :-) I remember writing against the Zortech Display library - a text-mode interface for writing to the screen for DOS programs. I quickly added an extra layer to make it easier to work with (ah... abstraction). And in one project I added another layer to give me some rudimentary overlapping windows. :-) Wade "Ah. One of the difficult questions."

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