Java not that bad... [LWN.net]

Java not that bad...

Posted Jul 30, 2004 10:38 UTC (Fri) by davidw (guest, #947)
In reply to: Java not that bad... by lacostej
Parent article: Paul Graham on great hackers

No, java certainly has its place, but I deeply resent having it shoved down my throat by a billion dollar marketing machine.

I also don't like the fact that it doesn't want to play with anything that's not java.

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Java not that bad...

Posted Jul 30, 2004 11:47 UTC (Fri) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link] (2 responses)

Greasing the sides of the pit to prevent escape is all part of the java trap.

"If you make decisions about software -- or anything -- based solely on short-term cost and benefit, someone with a longer view can easily manoeuver you into a trap from which it is hard to escape." quote by same author, different source.

Java not that bad...

Posted Aug 5, 2004 9:34 UTC (Thu) by halla (subscriber, #14185) [Link]

I rather like java -- I don't have to worry about peformance hits by
making things virtual for every method, I have packages, don't have header
files, explicit interfaces, garbage collection, a quite clear syntax and
so on. All nice to have. And native compilation and relatively easy
linking to existing C/C++ code.

On the other hand, I find I don't care all that much, in the end, whether
I do Qt programming in Java or in C++. The C++ annoyances are something to
shrug off and then continue coding. The Java advantages are not compelling
enough to start actually using it in real projects like Krita, even though
gcj, classpath and qtjava are just about mature enough for that.

Java not that bad...

Posted Aug 7, 2004 18:16 UTC (Sat) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

What RMS doesn't say in there is that this is more a `VM with bad FFI trap' than anything else.

There is an `Emacs trap' in exactly the same way (except that it's free software, so you could add an FFI to it if you wanted to: the Emacs trap's sides are not greased).