Re: Some Laws

On 23 Sep 2004 15:05:07 -0700 in comp.databases.theory, AaronJSherman_at_gmail.com (Aaron Sherman) wrote:

>"Laconic2" <laconic2_at_comcast.net> wrote in message news:<ubmdncUAr--WSszcRVn-rg_at_comcast.com>...
>
>> Yeh. The guy who tried to convince me that Java introduced the automatic
>> garbage collector. I think he had never heard of Lisp.

Or BASIC!

>Ok, on to your comment. Yes, garbage collection has been around for
>decades, and no one who knew more than 3 languages was shocked when
>Java came out and had garbage collection. Perhaps, some of us were
>shocked that it was as agressive a GC scheme as it was, since we'd
>come to think of all things C-derived as "close to the metal", but
>that was just a mental block, not a valid observation.

Pretty common in interpreted languages for decades.

>However, the reason that Java (rightly) gets much of the credit here,
>is not that there wasn't amazingly valuable work done previously, but
>that Java managed to present GC in the context of a language that in
>turn presented all of the right bits that made millions of computer
>programmers want to use it.

Could have said the same about BASIC.

>Java brought GC to the great mass of software engineers, and the only
>language to come within a couple *orders of magnitude* of that
>accomplishment previously was elisp (of EMCAS fame).

I think that you forgot BASIC (again)! ;^>

-- 
Thanks. Take care, Brian Inglis 	Calgary, Alberta, Canada

Brian.Inglis_at_CSi.com 	(Brian[dot]Inglis{at}SystematicSW[dot]ab[dot]ca)
    fake address		use address above to reply