Re: The Revenge of the Geeks

From: Arved Sandstrom <asandstrom2_at_eastlink.ca>
Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2013 06:03:49 -0400
Message-ID: <aG7Ms.15389$O02.8079_at_newsfe18.iad>

On 01/24/2013 12:47 AM, BGB wrote:

> On 1/23/2013 7:17 PM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>> On 1/23/2013 5:35 AM, BGB wrote:
>>> On 1/23/2013 3:25 AM, Arved Sandstrom wrote:

>>>> On 01/23/2013 02:21 AM, BGB wrote:

>>>>> On 1/22/2013 11:33 PM, Kevin McMurtrie wrote:
>>>>>> Yes, it is a shame that Oracle runs Java but Sun wasn't so great
>>>>>> at it
>>>>>> either.  Both pushed for high cost, high complexity "enterprise
>>>>>> edition"
>>>>>> libraries that come and go like fashion but dragged their feet on
>>>>>> streamlining the language itself.
>>>>>
>>>>> much agreed...
>>>>>
>>>>> the lack of "streamlining" of the core language is admittedly one
>>>>> of my
>>>>> bigger complaints about Java at present.
>>>>>
>>>>> this is along with what few new features are added to the core
>>>>> language
>>>>> (and to the JVM) are IMO far too often via ugly hacks.
>>>>

>>>> I'm not too worried about Java the language being close to stagnant, so
>>>> long as library development is up to par. Because if the solution I've
>>>> selected includes the JVM, then often Scala or Clojure are better
>>>> choices for high-productivity coding. Myself I don't care if Java the
>>>> language ever gets updated again - it's not important. The innovation
>>>> shifted away from Java the language years ago; there are better JVM
>>>> options now.

>>>>

>>>> So I would disagree with both you and Kevin that "streamlining" the
>>>> core
>>>> language is all that important. You can't do enough of it to core Java
>>>> to make it worthwhile, without major changes. So why bother now? What's
>>>> important actually *are* those "high cost, high complexity EE
>>>> libraries", plus the later SE/EE-agnostic libraries like concurrency.

>>>
>>> yes, but the lack of polish for the core language doesn't really make
>>> using Java a particularly attractive option when contrasted against,
>>> say, C++ or C#.
>>
>> I don't think Java should worry about C++. For business apps, then
>> C++ is not really an option. And business apps is what Java is good
>> at.
>>
>
> some of us never go anywhere near business apps though...
>
>
> for example, I am mostly at-present a game developer, with side areas in
> audio/video processing (writing codecs, ...), and am also into things
> like compilers and scripting VM technology.
>
> these are generally areas where C and C++ have a much stronger hold.
>

[ SNIP ] "Business" apps is however the core strength of Java, that and all the tooling that goes along with it. I couldn't care less if Java is found on *any* consumer computer, because that's not particularly important.

It comes back to this: you pick a language because of what it's suited for, or after languages have been around for a while, what other people already have used it for.

For "enterprise" type work the languages used are variable. For example, if you're dealing with IBM WebSphere MQ, depending on your task, you might be using a .NET language, Java, C or C++. But nevertheless a great deal of applications from the big iron companies are Java SE and EE.

AHS Received on Thu Jan 24 2013 - 11:03:49 CET