10 Reasons We Need Java 3

An anonymous reader writes "This article on O'Reilly Network (written by one of the most active Java book writers ever, Elliotte Rusty Harold) has some interesting points about the need for a new 'cleaned up' Java version, made to incorporate the advances in the last 7 years of its life and without the requirement to keep compatibility with old versions."

Comments

Re:Serious features seriously needed

[mark_lybarger]

java allowed you to increase productivity, substantially?

according to this whitepaper, when developers are given their preferance of language to use to implement a solution, they're most productive. ie, someone who knows c++ and enjoys working in c++ will be just as productive as someone who knows java and enjoys working in java.

i'd be extremely interested to see some concrete independant studies showing otherwise.

Re:The "most controversial" proposal

[CaptainAlbert]

> > One word - ew!
> Why ew? Because of your limited programming
> experience with languages where this was
> eschewed?

Nope, just flamebait :)

> Explain? How can you write a Non-OO program in
> a Pure-OO language?

I'm not sure what your question really is here, and you seem to have answered it yourself. You can take your problem, use structured design / functional decomposition to come up with a solution circa 1980, then implement it in Java much as you would do in C. A single class, with many methods and members (hell, make 'em static while you're at it)... no polymorphism, no inheritence, no data hiding, no application-level abstraction.

You can go one step back up the ladder and pretend to be using Pascal/Modula2/Ada, using classes as abstract data types and providing simple access functions. Still not what most people would call an "object-oriented" program.

Remember, design *is* programming. A program which deliberately avoids the object-oriented features of its implementation language cannot be called OO just because it "contains objects". A good language is one which allows the programmer to express him/herself in the most suitable way for the problem being solved. If a developer has to find "ways around" a particular feature of the language, then that language is flawed.

Me? If I was asked "what is the most harmful programming construct", I would choose type casts every time - yes, even over gotos and pointers.

As you've probably guessed, I like C++. I tried Java and didn't like it. Therefore, I am just ranting bitterly and should be ignored at all costs. :))