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Summary of JDK1.5 Language Changes
An anonymous reader writes "Over at java.sun.com, there's an informative article about the new features in JDK1.5. Some of the changes like generics are nice and should make some things easier. Some of the enhancements to me are purely sugar, like enumerators. When it comes down to it, once the code is compiled, it's the same. The thing I hope is, some of this new syntactic sugar doesn't result in more obfuscated code. Unlike some people, I feel using programming shorthand leads to increased maintenance. This is especially true when you have to debug a complex application."
I agree. This is why I never create my own functions or methods. Evey program should be just one big function.
I feel using programming shorthand leads to increased maintenance
:)
My code was hard to write to it should be hard to read.
Java adds four new syntaxes, Python's for loop, Perl type checking at compile time, something called 'metadata', and C enumerations, all of which impove compile time type checking at the expense of making the source code look and feel like perl.
#define FOREVER for(;;)
#define BEGIN {
#define END }
#define ONE 1
#define PUSHORT unsigned short *
#define DONE goto end
The first thing an amateur programmer does when assigned a new project in C/C++ is to go redefine the language and all the types. I scolded them for these kinds of things, knowing that once they were forced to read other people's code often that they would realize how stupid these kinds of things are. Unfortunately, once I started my career in embedded development, I quickly learned how stupid I must have been to think that people left these behaviors behind in college... (all the above examples are taken from "professional" code that I've seen in the last few weeks)
...just my 2 gil.
Typesafe enums. That alone makes me quiver with happiness.
You don't get out much, do you?
(Score:-1, Wrong)