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Phillip Greenspun: Java == SUV

lateralus writes "In his blog, Philip Greenspun re tells of his epiphany that Java is the SUV of programming languages. An interesting point brought forth in his typical extreme style."

38 of 974 comments (clear)

  1. Agreed! by toupsie · · Score: 3, Funny

    It pollutes the environment and wastes gas...

    --
    Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
    1. Re:Agreed! by parseexception · · Score: 4, Funny

      A project done in Java will cost 5 times as much, take twice as long, and be harder to maintain than a project done in a scripting language such as PHP or Perl.
      not only that if you have to change direction quickly it will roll over and burst into flames

      --
      Yeah, I saw a yard gnome once, it didn't scare me - Space Ghost
  2. so I guess that would make C# the.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Pinto?

    1. Re:so I guess that would make C# the.... by Epistax · · Score: 2, Funny

      I think VB would be one of those things you put together with lego.

  3. Re:JAVA is the suv? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    You mean, "JAVA is the language of the people who like to call themselves developers."

  4. SUV? Sure! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny
    Does that mean it's big, bloated and flips over every time you try to push it to do what it's supposed to do?

    /me wonders what the Firestone tires of programming is. Then goes to RTFA.

    1. Re:SUV? Sure! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

      Couldn't RTFA, for some unknown reason. Thank you, /.!

  5. Penis extension? by skaffen42 · · Score: 4, Funny

    OK, I've heard Java called a lot of things and I know it has its faults, but I really don't think the SUV comparison holds water.

    Nobody ever started using Java because they wanted to compensate for a small penis, which is the only possible reason for buying an Hummer.

    --
    People couldn't type. We realized: Death would eventually take care of this.
  6. Jeep is better than SUV by mnmn · · Score: 3, Funny

    Where ANSI C is the jeep of them all. C++ is a two-door which looks nicer but is slightly less useful. C can be used and abused by anyone anywhere and will obviously outlast Java, but anyone with money to throw and show off (at the cost of wasting enormous resources) will get the SUV. Smaller programmers here and there (not smaller in importance) will use the bicycle which would be Perl. For now, I'll just take a walk (BASIC)

    --
    "Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
    1. Re:Jeep is better than SUV by pebs · · Score: 4, Funny

      Take a hike (use assembly language)

      --
      #!/
    2. Re:Jeep is better than SUV by Master+Controll+Prog · · Score: 2, Funny
      no, you misunderstand asm. and seth is still a not-very-dark name, no matter what you say.

      mv drk sth
      nop
  7. Re:Finally by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    I've been writing web applications since the late 70s (initially for the NSA before we made it public) and in my experience Java has a lot of inherent faults that render it useless for large scope projects.

    It's cross-platform feature has been tainted by the agenda of the forces that dominate the respective operating system (BeOS, Windows, OS/2, Mac OS, and AIX). That is a pity since Sun had done such a phenomenal job in releasing the first public Java release back in 1985 which at the time would run on Commodore 128 and my Amstrad PC. About a year later they released a IBM PC version but unfortunately it required 256k of memory which made it dificult to deploy at the time.

  8. Java's not an SUV! by Steve+G+Swine · · Score: 5, Funny

    SUV's start up instantly!

    --
    "Consider yourself a member of a virtual corporation with Mr. Torvalds as your Chief Executive Officer." - Linux Advocac
  9. Like a SUV huh? by weave · · Score: 5, Funny
    Let's see, I can't read the article because it's slashdoted already, let me take a stab...

    Weave's rushed tongue-in-cheek SUV vs JAVA comparison:

    • Very successful, can't sell enough of them. Nope
    • Crushes the competition (anything that gets in the way). Nope
    • Able to crash in spectacular ways if not handled correctly. Maybe
    • Bloated, overkill. Yes
    • Wastes resources. Yes
    • Preferred by men with small penises. Yes
    • Can put everything including the kitchen sink into one. Yes
    • Is seldom used to do all of that. Yes
    • Promoted by using annoying advertising. Yes
  10. Thank You by JamesP · · Score: 4, Funny

    Someone spoke for that overbloated thing that is Java.

    Sun really beat M$ in THAT game. If you want to do anything in Java you need a hundred classes, calling a million methods and passing them several times.

    PHP and ASP are much more simple.

    Java joined the complexity of the Windows API with the speed of an interpreted language, along with some bitches as strong-typing, millions of similar classes.

    PHP
    cut(bread)

    ASP
    bread.cut();

    Java
    knifeh = new KnifeHandle
    knifeb = new KnifeBlade
    k = new Knife
    k.Attach(knifeh)
    k.Attach(knifeb)

    _try()
    { bread(k.cut)
    }
    catch (Outch)
    {
    dial.dialnumber(911);
    }

    --
    how long until /. fixes commenting on Chrome?
    1. Re:Thank You by erikdotla · · Score: 2, Funny

      #!perl
      $bread = qq(wheatwheatwheat);
      $bread =~ s/(\S{5})/$1 /g;

      # :)

      --
      # Erik
  11. Re:Finally by ctl · · Score: 0, Funny

    A voice of reason

    Well, note that Phil does advocate in his article the use of VB instead!

  12. Re:Worst analogy ever by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Mmm, nice comparison, can I compare assembly programming to bull running, it gets you fit and fast, but it winds up being a pain in the ass.

  13. Harvard: The 'SUV' of Higher Education? by hethatishere · · Score: 5, Funny

    Just a thought from a friendly MIT student.

    --
    Something intelligent here.
  14. Phillip Greenspun by Hard_Code · · Score: 4, Funny

    Phillip Greenspun == Hot air balloon of programming pundits

    --

    It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
    1. Re:Phillip Greenspun by kisrael · · Score: 3, Funny

      Phillip Greenspun == Hot air balloon of programming pundits

      Clearly your anagram generation routine is broken. Here's one:
      Phillip Greenspun = Gel slipper, hip nun
      or
      Phillip Greenspun = grep hep ills, unpin!

      --
      SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
  15. My language comparison by Jugalator · · Score: 3, Funny
    IMHO...
    • Visual Basic -- is a comment really necessary?
    • Java -- does what it's supposed to do
    • C# -- tries to be more advanced than Java, and is, but is rather similar in the end...
    • C / C++ -- now we're getting somewhere... does the job efficiently, but be sure you can handle it
    • Assembler -- it's cool, it's efficient, it's deadly if handled wrong
    --
    Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
  16. PARENT IS REDUNDANT MOD DOWN by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    there already is an anon non karma whore post of the article... mod it up instead of this whore!

  17. Re:JAVA is the suv? by hplasm · · Score: 2, Funny

    Ok, then Java isn't an SUV. It's the Econoline/ Transit van of the programming world. Until you get stuck behind it, it's fine...

    --
    ...and he grinned, like a fox eating shit out of a wire brush.
  18. Ummm??? by ayjay29 · · Score: 2, Funny

    How can "Java == SUV". it does not support operator overloads?

    Maybe Java.equals (SUV).

    --
    Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated up.
  19. Re:Finally by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny
    as silly as putting Linux on your toaster...sure you could do it, but it's not the most efficient solution.

    That's right. Everyone knows that NetBSD is the toaster OS of choice!
  20. Re:JAVA is the suv? by revscat · · Score: 4, Funny

    Plus imho Tomcat is a pain in the ass to configure, and you gotta keep javac'ing, and so on. Just give me a language where I can throw in a little bit of code in the middle of a webpage, in the regular web directory, and be done with it.

    Boy, what da HELL you talkin 'bout? Looky heah:

    <body>
    <p>
    <% for (int i = 0; i < 100; i++) { %>
    <b>Youz dummer dan a gator on whiskey!</b>
    <% } %>
    </p>

    Now, what so hard 'bout dat? Looks like code t'me! Looks like it's in the middle of a page! Hit it, load it, be done with it. Need t'change a value? Change it, save it, reload it. You all needs t'pull yo cranium outta yo backside, mmmhmm.

    "Gotta keep javac'ing." I declare, that's the DUMBEST thing I done heard all day.

  21. No, Thank You! by CausticPuppy · · Score: 3, Funny

    For providing examples of invalid syntax in PHP, ASP, and java!

    --
    -CausticPuppy "Of all the people I know, you're certainly one of them." -Somebody I don't know
  22. This guy has no idea what he's talking about. by Dr.+Bent · · Score: 5, Funny

    JSP is fantastically simpler than "J2EE", which is the recommended-by-Sun way of building applications

    JSP is a component of J2EE. Here's a tip: When you have an "epiphany" about the nature of something, it ususally helps to have at least a basic understanding of whatever the hell it is you're talking about.

  23. Nah... by hding · · Score: 2, Funny

    For example,

    http://www.cliki.net/Database

    I personally use Pg most of the time now, but I used to use CommonSQL (that comes with Lispworks), on which UncommonSQL is based. That really makes database access dead easy in Lisp.

  24. No! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    "Do you happen to teach Comp Sci at MIT?"

    No, I work for a living.

    Also, I have to live with the results of my technical choice for a decade, unlike some trendy professor from Boston who, in two years, will be promoting some other new technology trend.

    That's not a flame, that's just the truth.

  25. instances vs. classes by shemnon · · Score: 3, Funny

    Ahh, the good old ==. We are talking about Java, and instance of something, and an SUV, a tpye label assigned to various other isntances. The headling won't compile, you need to say Java == SUV.class but that's not quite right either. So what the headline should say is...

    Java instanceof SUV

    We'll ignore the bad naming conventions, specifically it should be a lowercase J. Dont forget also that Java instanceof 3GL and Java instanceof OO.

    My favorit happens to be Java instanceof ToyLanguage. The difference between men and boys? The size of their toys!

    --
    --Shemnon
  26. Java is the UBT by lardbottom · · Score: 2, Funny
    Urban Battle Tank

    Where else can you feel so safe, but completely fuel inefficient? Plus, if you run into someone else's code, you'll be just fine.

    --
    Give me a fish, I shall eat well for a day. Teach me to fish, and I will eat well until some idiot patents it.
  27. Re:Discredited by poot_rootbeer · · Score: 2, Funny

    He suggests that Visual Basic is better than Java. I will refrain from comment, the quote speaks for itself.

    Rootbeer's Corollary to Godwin's Law:

    On Slashdot, the terms "Visual Basic" and "Hitler" shall be interchangeable.

  28. Phil's not a troll by abe+ferlman · · Score: 3, Funny

    You want to know what I really think happened?

    Someone at Harvard wanted to load test their server configuration, so they turned to Phil and said "can you post some flame bait and then get it posted to Slashdot for us?"

    So you see he's not a troll, just a resourceful engineer :)

    --
    microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
  29. Re:Tcl is good by blibbleblobble · · Score: 2, Funny

    "The fact of the matter is, you can't do anything in Java you can't do in C++ or C or assembly language or raw machine language for that matter."

    You can write an arbitrarily complex program in any language... you just have to use that language to write a Lisp interpreter first...

  30. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 2, Funny

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  31. if ( Java == SUV) CPP = F18_Hornet; by cabazorro · · Score: 1, Funny

    Enough Said.

    --
    - these are not the droids you are looking for -