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How Much Java in the Linux World?
jg21 writes "Java is 'incredibly heavily used' in the Linux community, according to Sun's James Gosling, one of Java's co-creators. Gosling was debating Stanford's Lawrence Lessig, Apache co-founder Brian Behlendorf, IBM's Rod Smith, and others at JavaOne this week about the possible merits of open-sourcing Java vs the market's demand for continuing compatibility. But Behlendorf seemed not to agree. So who was right, how many Slashdotters are also Java users? Is "incredibly heavily used" an overstatement by Gosling, who after all helped create the language and therefore might be biased?"
..then you're not in the fucking industry.
simple as that, really. it IS heavily used(along with others).
When it comes to programming, I believe in the right tool for the right job. I predominately program in Java but it doesn't mean I use it to solve every programming problem I have. I use scripting languages and whatever else is appropriate to get the job done.
I only wish more of my peers could understand this :(
But you could use C, C++, ADA, Perl, PHP, Python, Lisp, OCaml, ... as well for writing cross platform applications. ...
And for user interfaces you could use QT, FLTK, WxWindows,
And for 3D you could use OpenGL.
There might be a million reasons to use Java (and probably as many for not using it) - but writing portable code is definitely no reason.
BTW: by using a language that has different implementations (like C and C++) you should allways write portable as that impoves code quality.
No, this is because a lot of relatively young programmers have only learned Java, not C/C++/Python/Perl/etc. in school. And because Java is hyped as being modern and cool by the media, businesses and its developers. In short Java is hypeware.
I'm willing to bet that the downloaded total of eg. Python/Perl is bigger than that of Java. Fot C/C++ this goes without saying. The nr. of downloads indicates use, not the nr. of Java projects.
There is no such thing like C/C++! C and C++ are different languages with different standards.
Java is not the best for command line programs mainly because VM initialization is expensive (in terms of time). This could be possibly alleviated by having a system-level VM that was initialized at boot time or something, and programs would just attach themselves to an already-initialized VM; this would have the major disadvantage of bringing down all running Java programs if the VM crashes or one program does some naughty things. Java does have some nice facilities for seperating modules at runtime in the same VM by using ClassLoaders and such.
But, perhaps more relevantly, I think the most successful and widespread use of Java these days is on the server, which generally has no GUI unless you count web-page generation.
-If
Run a pencil-and-paper RPG campaign with your far-off friends: Gametable!
Linux is heavily used in the Java community...
Not intended as troll - I work at a multinational financial institution. While most of our trading systems need incredible speed, and are done in C++, there is a firm-wide push to develop most of our server processes in Java. I am not a Java fanboy, but for many applications, Java is just easier to manage. To get code up and working quickly, Java is great. (if you're in the unfortunate position to have to write windows apps, C# is pretty quick as well) Lusers are lusers in any industry, but traders are generally more thickheaded than most, and they like to have software that works "pretty well" yesterday rather than perfect in 3 months.
Maybe you are unfamiliar with the concept of the '/' character, but where I come from it is commonly used to denote alternatives. As in: most people use either C or C++.
HAND.
"But you could use C, C++, ADA, Perl, PHP, Python, Lisp, OCaml,
And for 3D you could use OpenGL.
There might be a million reasons to use Java (and probably as many for not using it) - but writing portable code is definitely no reason. "
Why not put aside the additional effort of writing portable C, C++ etc etc, and just get on with fulfilling the specs by using... Java?
BTW, Java isn't so much about writing portable code as building portable apps.
For instance, I'm writing (part of) a biggish defense system (> GBP 300 million for HW + SW). It is an absolutely stunning timesaver to be able to develop, build & test on commodity NT boxes. The same jars are then FTP'd onto the target platform, which is not NT (and I'm not saying what it is, either). Guess what: Exact same behaviour on the target machine as on my desktop, but, each target machine costs around GBP100k, so we're happy that about all we need 'em for is soak testing - it's all inventory, you know!
Next, we can FTP the same jars to the training machines, which are commodity boxes running Linux, and guess what: No recompilation, porting or testing necessary - we get exactly the same behaviour here too. Again less inventory, and no added programming effort. Sweet!
The guys working on older products - ones that are in the maintenance phase, and will soon be phased out - are starting to be trained in Java. These guys are used to programming down to the metal, and at best having a C cross-compiler with printf's for debugging. They are, to a man, amazed at the ease with which they can slot applications together, and at the productivity they can attain with Java. One guy made a comment that stuck in my mind: "Things just work first time... this doesn't feel like programming!"
T&K.
Political language
I also use Java for any software that needs a nice user interface. The big advantage is really the cross platform nature of Java.
Sure, C++ works cross platform, but you need some library that isn't really part of the language for lots of the details (threading, GUI interface, etc). Really not cross platform the way Java is.
I see Java's main advantage over C++ is the depth of the standard Library. When you use C, you get the C standard library. When you use C++ you pretty much still have the C standard library and maybe STL. Java gives you a very rich library and as far as I know the library is fully supported under all the platforms that Java runs on. Certainly Linux and Windows.
We do a lot of Open Source work, but by far the bulk of it (especially for enterprise level applications) is done with Perl.
Of course if we were "bigger" or writing "bigger" applications, Java starts to see some advantages, but the biggest hurdle is to actually get a reliably installable version.
Sure, we can download it from IBM, or from Sun, or from Blackdown, but they all have differences of opinion, differences of quality and differences of ideals.
We use Debian for all of our systems, and every other damn software package we run is built and works for Debian, and plays nicely with everything else. But not Java. There's no standard place that it gets installed - to the extent that some packages will successfully identify that you have it, and others won't. It isn't in synch with the libc or libgcc that's current at any point in time. Since I upgraded my laptop to Mozilla 1.7, Java no longer works: not that it was ever particularly reliable.
So while there might be some wonderful advantages to building applications with Java, the general flakiness of my experiences with applications written to use it, means that I can't develop for it, because I can't inflict that flakiness onto my clients.
Partly, of course, this flaw is because Debian's approach to licensing means that something with the shackles around it that all JVM's will have, will never be part of core Debian. In fact though, that's mostly the case for any distribution, even the commercial ones, because they are all depending on open-source licenses for all the rest of the environment, and to be in synch with those, you have to be part of everyone's standard install.
Commercial distros must have to put lots of effort into making their setup work with their chosen JVM, rather than sticking the horse in front of the cart and making their chosen JVM work within their environment.
I sure would like to see an DFSG free implementation of Java, and I don't understand why this entails Sun "losing control" of the standard, and why they are in such a panic about allowing that to happen.
I am working at a Java Project at the University and I have found Java to be an absolute nightmare when it comes to consistency of implementation. I agree with you in that the idea of Java was good, but the implementation of the language has absolutely no aspects of a beautiful/easy-to-use language. I could name dozens of things I encountered in the past few weeks but I will name just a few: -primitive types and associated classes: When I want to store a variable of one the primitve types like int (the ones you use in every class) you have to wrap them into a class (Integer) which has no way to change the Value later. So everytime I want to e.g. increment a counter stored this way, I have to convert it back to int, increment it und create a new Integer-Object to store the incremented value back into my container-class. -If I want to compare two Classes I have to use the equals-Method instead of a simple operator-overloading which would enable me to use == -When I retrieve an Object from a Container it is a java.lang.Object instead of the type I stored which totally negates the advantages of static typing -Attributes of a Class are not totally protected against access from the outside (I have to work with old code that makes heavy use of this) In short, Java is critical because it is portable and managed. I worked a year as a system administrator after school and I can tell you Java is nowhere near it's theoretical Portability in the field. Once I had to replace a couple of hundred JRE because one important (Java-)Software the Company used produced lots of errors on 1.3.1_04 and ran fine on 1.3.1_02. When I started the programming project for the University I mentioned above I had to install Borland Together (for UML which we had to use). I tried to install it but the InstallAnywhere insisted on using its 1.3.1 dynamically compiled JRE which did not run on my glibc 2.3 system. I had to manually unpack the installation package, use another JRE 1.3.1 to install (the installer insisted on the old version, i had installed 1.4.2 at the time). When I tried to use the JRE 1.4.2 with it later (by editing the start-shell-script) the exporting to images of the diagrams stopped working. Long story short, Java is not portable nor compatible to another version of itself, which would be no real problem if it you had the source of the old Java-Program you wanted to use but since almost all Java-Programs are closed-source this poses quite a big problem as soon as someone wants to use more than one Java-Program on his/her computer.
Linux is not Windows
then you could take it to mean : The most heavily used language is either C or C++ (but not a combination of the two). Such is the curse of natural language. :)
I know this doesn't square with the original poster's second sentence, so I'll concede that you're probably right that TheCoop doesn't grasp that C and C++ are indeed quite different languages (syntax notwithstanding).
But just to get back on topic: It seems to me that Free/OSS server code is heavily slanted in favour of C and not C++ or Java. Actually, I can't think of a single Free/OSS server that's written in C++. And I can only think of one Free/OSS server written in Java, namely Freenet. Quite sad, really, since there are still lots and lots of buffer overflows and sprintf vulnerabilities being found every day.
HAND.
This statistic says nothing about the real use of any of these languages. It just tells us how many people started projects in one of the languages but it does not tell us about the success. They might be abandoned right after they started a few lines of code or the might be very active and have a few thousand lines of code.
Linux is not Windows
I think the question was about new crafted programs and wether you as a code use java. The question was not wether most installed programs are Java or not, which would be ridiculous.
/. storry? You only need to search on sourceforge or freshmeat to realize that the majority of new projects start in Java.
... Commercial projects are either for the Windows platform, and then likely in Visual C++ or Visual Basic, or they are platform neutral and then they are done 90% of the time in Java.
Why is that worth a
All people I know program mainly in Java and script in Python
angel'o'sphere
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
What about Perl or PHP or Python; Quite a few C and C++ programmers that moved to using scripting languages. The quote is not about enterprise programming it's about how often its being used in the Linux community and in that community there are HUGE numbers of people who are using scripting languages. I've learned C in the '80s and didn't consider PHP suitable but the horsepower of modern CPUs makes PHP a totally legitimate solution nowadays; you can do very complex things in it, almost all C functions are included with often the same syntax and on the other hand beginning programmers or web developers can very rapidly learn it. I find the wording "incredibly heavily used" weird from someone like Gosling, "widespread use" would be perhaps applicable but Java has nothing like the kind of community that PHP has.
Of those to whom much is given, much is required.
Hm ....
.equals() is :D
.equals() is user defined and you define "equal" as you need it for a certain type.
... you whine about 1.3x versus 1.3y .... we are at 1.5 beta now, that one fixes all your complains about int versus Integer and Container classes.
... in C++ times it was often very difficult or impossible to help your self under such circumstances.
-If I want to compare two Classes I have to use the equals-Method instead of a simple operator-overloading which would enable me to use ==
If that is a problem to you, yoou should probably try to understand what the difference between "==" and
BTW: in C or C++ you have the same distinction. Its called comparision by value and comparision by address, == checks for same address, that means same object.
Together is also available as zip file, probably you should just have tried to unzip that one instead of running an InstallShield.
Regarding the incompatible versison
To be fair: all you complaines are somewhat valid, but: don't you think other people had the same trouble with C++ compilers? At any given point in time there where allways about 100 more different versions of C++ compilers plus environments around than we have now Java implementations. Problems like you pointed them out are rather rare!! And you could help yourself
angel'o'sphere
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
The commercial players are merely standing on the shoulders of the community, picking and choosing what they like and more often than not making a mess of it. Need I remind you of the absolute debacle the rpm package system is, compared to Debian's? What about the semi functional, buggy system management tools each vendor (Mandrake, Red Hat, you name it) bundles with their distro, only to be abandoned and redone differently in the next version, and on and on.
There's certainly absolute utter crap in both commercially backed and hobbyist software, but it's way less simple than Linus, Apache, Mozilla + IBM versus the rest. Most great OSS is NOT company backed, just people doing their best to make something that *works*, however long it takes to build it and damn those share prices.
All of them do almost all their work in open source environments.
Seastead this.
Portable, standardized language and interfaces are what gives Java it's power.
:)
Yeah, because gods know that no other language has ever been portable or standardized.
Unless protected by a strong consortium [...] Java would rapidly fragment into several code forks
Just as has happened with those other highly portable, standardized, cross-platform languages like Tcl/Tk, Perl, Python, etc. (Oh wait, I forgot, there are no other portable, standardized, cross-platform languages, my mistake.) Yeah, clearly, every language that isn't under the rigid control of corporate-owned constortia is instantly subject to massive forking by the dangerous denizens of the dark side. Open-sourcing computer languages makes the baby jebus cry!
Java's embedded documentation [...]
Oh, yeah, too bad the perl coders couldn't come up with something like that years before java even existed! Come to think of it, I think the perl guys borrowed it from lisp! Oh well, it's clearly an advantage of Java and of no other language!
And the best part about using java? It's low-level C/C++-like syntax and data structures means that you get to write many times more lines of code than you would need to to code the equivalent in tcl or perl or python. Why is that good? More money for programmers to write and (especially) to maintain all that extra code!
Java, with the support costs of a low level language, the run-time overheads of a high-level one, and the benefits of neither, is clearly the best choice. Just try it, and you'll be sayin', "Wow! I gotta get me some o' dat!"
Whoops, sorry, was I waxing sarcastic again?
Oh yeah, and all three of those other languages I mentioned have all settled on a single cross-platform GUI toolkit to share (Tk). How many GUI toolkits are fighting for dominance in the java world these days? I stopped counting after three. Boy, that there's some good standardization!
Aaaanyway, I don't want to bash java too hard. I actually think it's a pretty decent language overall. I just get so tired of people who think it's God's Gift; people who usually don't have a clue what else is out there. Java's ok, but it ain't All That!
The philosophy of Java is, that if you need 64 bit precision, use a datatype that uses 64 bits. IMO, it is a great advantage of Java that the primitives are declared so precisely.
It sure beats the "how large is an int exactly" mess you get in c/c++.
How long did it takes most linux programs to become 64 bit clean? This was never a problem for Java apps.
If only I could come up with a good sig
I totally disagree that Java has absolutely no aspects of a beautiful/easy-to-use language. I think you're neglecting the fact that when Java burst on the scene in '95, it provided a simple means to write cross platform applications in a way C/C++ did not out of the box.
I worked on a satellite system for NASA written in C++ that was originally spec'd to work on five UNIX platforms. Keep in mind this is in the days before Linux became widely adopted... and this system was a major headache because:
This is not to slam C++ in its current incarnation, but to point out that when Java first arrived on the scene, the restrictions and smaller set of APIs made it easy to ramp up developers who could then build cross-platform applications much quicker.
As for your specificpoints, let me explain where I disagree:
-primitive types and associated classes: When I want to store a variable of one the primitve types like int (the ones you use in every class) you have to wrap them into a class (Integer) which has no way to change the Value later. So everytime I want to e.g. increment a counter stored this way, I have to convert it back to int, increment it und create a new Integer-Object to store the incremented value back into my container-class.
Primitive types are (IMHO) a bit of a hack in Java, but they behave much like primitive types in C++. Granted, lacking generics (pre-Java 1.5), Java cannot support arbitrary collections of primitives, but consider this: if you want to store and manage collections of primitive types, couldn't you write your own class to either "wrap" the primitive type? I'd also recommend wrapping the Collection you're using to simplify the mutators.
-If I want to compare two Classes I have to use the equals-Method instead of a simple operator-overloading which would enable me to use ==
I can't count how many times I ran into incompatibly defined flavors of operator overloading in "mediocre" C++ code where bugs in operator overloading introduced logic errors that were hard to find.
Inn the case of equals(Object) versus the == operator, consider this: in Java they have two completely different purposes. If you want to compare two object references to see if they refer to the same object, use ==. If you want to compare the contents of the objects they refer to, use equals(Object). Consider the ambiguity and potential for flaws when the operator's behavior could be changed to deviate from comparing references to Objects!
This is a case where I believe that removing a feature from a language makes it easier for developers to avoid dealing with obscure bugs while trying to get an application done.
-When I retrieve an Object from a Container it is a java.lang.Object instead of the type I stored which totally negates the advantages of static typing Solved in Java 1.5 with Gener
Well.. this sort of question will lead to the following answers:
1. I don't use Java because my machine is too slow, I don't like applets, or perhaps they use one Java app and say its ok. (These answers are from people who didn't read and understand the question.)
2. I like Java == Coffee! (These answers are from people who did read it, but were being funny.. thats good..)
3. I don't see Java used in the enterprise at all. We run a pure win32 shop and block Java at the firewall. In fact, we only drink tea to ensure we are not contaminated. (These answers are from a software company in Washington state mainly.. with a few other unfortunate exceptions as well.)
4. We use Java in the enterprise. (These answers are from people who actually work in an enterprise.)
A definition.. the enterprise does not mean your home network.. your school lab.. sourceforge.. freshmeat.. the internet cafe that you swap sysadmin services for free scones.. it means large corporate systems and infrastructures.
I haven't seen any enterprise-class system *not* oriented towards Java in a long time. Even ones not build in a J2EE model have evolved over time to support many of those components to streamline integration and development. Java has a good solid foundation in these areas, and with newer versions of the J2SE/J2EE specifications, it gets to be a richer server and client platform.
As far as Java on Linux.. I think the question should be more focused on the adoption of Linux as opposed to Java. Many places I work run many Java applications, but have requirements that Unix-hosted systems and applications must live on Sun Solaris, IBM, or other platforms. These requirements simplify management, accountability, and vendor management. That is worth a lot. Getting that Linux box online is cheaper when compared to that Sparc box, but the lifetime of supporting and maintaining the box could be higher if you are already supporting a large Sun infrastructure. This is all irrespective of Java.
Probably one of the biggest deals for Linux in the enterprise is Oracle's push and support of Linux for their entire suite of applications, and for publishing effective case stories on horizontal scaling on Linux systems. This benefits Java, as that is the primary language in Oracle-land now, but its a bigger benefit to Linux. IBM's push for Linux and Java is also very effective... (I rate Oracle higher, since they don't have a hardware issue to bring to the table, and are just pushing software.. IBM does push the software in the Websphere suite, but tends to bring hardware as well..)
So.. Linux is gaining in enterprise acceptance.. therefore Java on Linux is gaining.. but I think Java is set and has proven itself. Its Linux that is doing the proving now.
You might have had me until this: "OSS means no sanity checks on feature creep, portability verification, documentation verification, regression testing, and all the other enterprise-project aspects of development that make it a useful technology."
OSS is a methodology, not a technology.
And to claim that only "enterprise projects" are "worthy" somehow is complete arrogance.
While I agree that having centralized control works, there are quite obviously many other ways of doing things, I think to call it the only route to success is foolish at best.
There is no such thing like C/C++! C and C++ are different languages with different standards.
See this is why people don't like nerds, no one said they were the same thing but they often get grouped together because of history, stop being so pedantic.
Operator overloading is a PITA for those of us who have ever had to debug code that has been obsfucated by overloading '==', '+', or any number of other operators so they don't behave the way you expect. In my opinion, saving the few keystrokes by typing 'foo == bar' instead of 'foo.equals(bar)' is not worth the pain inflicted when you don't know if/where '==' has been defined. It turns into a real pain when you're working on large projects with large inheritence trees. With Java it's pretty easy to track down the definition of '.equals'. In C++ with polymorphism it gets really weird figuring these things out. If you use operator overloading in C++, make sure all developers on the project adhere to a convention for semantics.
So the whole Sun fear of "embrace and extend" is completely moronic. You can ALREADY extend Java in completely incompatible ways. After open sourcing, Sun's Java standard will still remain the "real" Java, and we know this will be the case because if it were not, then Java would have already lost control. So, if you're a developer, and you care if you're code works outside of Linux, then you'd better use Sun's (or possibly IBM's) Java implementation. And that's how it will be until the day no one cares about Sun Microsystems--a day that will come much sooner if Java continues to stay restricted and everyone's forced to move to Mono.
On the other hand, Java's pace would probably faster (and we wouldn't have had to wait forever for generics.) if it were open. Standards are just as important if not more to Mozilla as to Sun, but being open seems to work well for them.
It would certainly allow Java to be targetted to more obscure platforms. God help you if you want to write once, run anywhere other than Windows, Sun, Mac, or Linux/x86.
It would also mean that I wouldn't have to go to Sun's painful web site and hunt down the SDK and documentation past all the click-thru licenses. At the very LEAST it would be nice if sun let other people distribute their still closed java implementations. Of course, that would just be nice, it wouldn't be enough to head off platform irrelevance.
OSS means no sanity checks on feature creep, portability verification, documentation verification, regression testing, and all the other enterprise-project aspects of development that make it a useful technology. I've lost track of the number of times I've encountered platform-specific hacks in OSS code that weren't properly #ifdef-bracketed, or which just completely incompatible with other O/S implementations.
Yeah, that never happens in closed source software EVER. I actually agree with you that the language choices of OSS aren't all that grand (though lots of languages have embedded documentation, and the ones that don't can have it added with seperate tools)--but if you want everyone to start using Java instead, opening the source is the only way. No one wants to dedicate their time and energy for free to something a corporation has complete legal control over--unlike Mozilla/Apache/Linux, in which the corporations have merely de facto control. To be honest, Sun has made so much noise about their Open Source debate that I can't see how anyone could have any respect for them at this point if they don't announce a plan to open it reasonably soon.
I personally use a couple of Java client applications on my Linux desktop..
Azureus and LimeWire are both written in Java.
And that about "Swing does not fit in the X11 word" is just a lie. Swing works fine in X11 under Linux. You should really try some of these things out before posting whatever you pull out of your ass.
Why? Because the problems I solve with scripts do not require the complexity of running them through Java :)
If Java is comparable to C++ speed, then that C++ code is doing something wrong, or C++ can be a lot slower than I ever imagined.
Whatever. This is statement of opinion, not fact.
Write some comparable code, and try it.
"look back at recent Slashdot articles"?
There is a core of anti-Java bias on Slashdot. I assumed that if I pointed back to a Slashdot article that demonstrated Java speed, I might make some progress in countering that bias. However, there are, of course, plenty of independent studies.
Here's the major difference, and it isn't anything technical really:
Programming in C, you will always be writing code in the solution domain. And every little thing that doesn't involve manipulation of a built-in type (think strings or arrays) is a source of pain and a potential hazard.
Programming in C++, assuming you know what you are doing (too many people don't), you will be writing code in the problem domain. You no longer worry about things like strings (you have a class that lets you treat it like a built-in type) or arrays (you have a template that makes sure you do not overrun any boundaries).
Now, I'm _not_ saying that C++ is the perfect language (it isn't), or that it should be used for everything (it shouldn't), or that there are no other languages out there that don't have those features (there are). What I am saying is that C++ is a completely different language from C, and throwing them together like that doesn't make any sense. You might as well say "C/SmallTalk/Python is a bad language for certain purposes."
Picking apart your message a bit, I note that Java also shares many attributes with C++. Does that mean there is almost always a better alternative for it as well?
And I'm not entirely certain what you mean with "you guys might not like to be grouped together", but let me assure you I am not a computer language ;-)
Have a look at your Linux installation. Do you even have a Java runtime installed? What are the dependencies when you try to remove them? Chances are good that, even if you happen to have a Java runtime installed, you can remove it without losing any functionality you use. Compare that with, say, Perl.
Unless you have a rather unusual and specific need (Tomcat, JSP, Java homework problems, you probably will never need Java on your Linux system.
It's true that people have started a lot of projects in Java: there has been a huge flurry of "X-in-Java", where "X" is any existing piece of software, but few of those projects have been successful. And most Java projects that have yielded something useful are just Java projects to produce tools for Java programming, rather than anything any normal user might want to use.
I suspect that the Linux-Java link is largely that Java lets you run on any platform, and Linux is the best platform when you have no requirements for the platform. If you are planning to run purely Java software, you can choose your platform based on cost, performance, stability, etc., rather than worrying about features and migration cost.
I think that it is not particularly the case that Java is popular in the Linux world, but that Linux is popular (as least as a deployment platform) in the Java world, and that is a substantial portion of the Linux world as seen in business.
but the point was, that the jobs using scripts, weere working ok using scripts.
Adding more power doesn't help anything when lack of power was not a problem in the first place.
Advanced users are users too!
I think it's probably because Java is a much cleaner language than C++ and has a massive standard library. That cuts development time and bugs down tremendously. Building Java applications is a lot easier, as generally building a component of an application (or an entire application itself) boils down to a single "compile all files in this directory" command. But for anything more complicated, Ant is lightyears ahead of makefiles.
Most universities now teach object orientation with java (something I don't agree to, I prefer C++ for learning OOP)
Why would you prefer C++ to Java for teaching OOP concepts? So students can get bogged down in all the cruft and baggage associated with C++? Java is a far cleaner language, allowing you to focus on pure OOP concepts as opposed to kludgy hacks built on top of a procedural language.
OTOH, corporations prefer Java to reduce costs in case of porting apps
From my experience, the corporate choice of Java boils down to TIME. A Java app can be developed in FAR less time than a C++ app.
But I do not think operator overloading abuse would be as common in Java as it was in C++ even if Java supported it. I suspect that a lot of the reason why people use operators outside of their original context is because the C++ leader, Bjarne Stroustrup, did exactly that himself when he created the iostreams library, and used the > as I/O operators, a _completely_ different paradigm from their original purpose, which was to shift values either to the left or to the right. In my opinion, he should have simply conceded that I/O wasn't going to be possible to do with existing operators without violating semantic compatibility.
With Java, that wouldn't be happening, so people wouldn't have a cruddy example to follow. If Java supported operator overloading, I also suspect that a certain degree of darwinism would play a factor in this, and people who tried to use operator overloading in stupid ways would find themselves quickly ostracized from the common Java programming community.
BTW, it's worth noting that Java _does already have the '+' operator overloaded for their String class.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
As far as SWT versus swing its all about trade-offs. They take two different approaches, and neither approach can be said to be superior 100% of the time. It depends on what you're trying to accomplish. If you're obsessed with a native OS look-n-feel, then I'd go with SWT. If you're obsessed with your app looking identically on each OS, or you want broader OS support for your app, go with swing.
If I am writing a desktop app, I like for that app to be as tightly integrated with that desktop as possible. Maybe I want the win32 version of my app to leverage an existing activeX control (possible through SWT, but frowned upon by the JAVA purist). To some of us, its is worth the little extra effort to take advantage of these things on the platforms that they're available on. Remember, almost by definition, swing has to appeal to the least-common-denominator. Besides if I wanted to absolutely make sure my app was avaialble on every platform I'd probably go the web-app direction, and not with swing or SWT.
I love JAVA (develop with it professionally), but it is an "lsd" solution. Well, it is if you insist on being a purist. Just do a search on all the hacks out there to use environment variables from JAVA. The purist says, "don't use them, not all platforms have them." I like having the majority of my business logic in JAVA, but I also like giving my customers an application that takes full advantage of the platform they're on, be it linux, mswindows, or macosx.
Java does not have operator overloading, but it does have overloading in general. i.e. you can define multiple implementations of the equals function depending on argument types if you like. So we're really arguing about notation.
Although I miss it in Java, I do have one issue with operator overloading:
cheeseDoodle == thingamajig
and
thingamajig == cheeseDoodle
conceptually should be equivalent. If you've overloaded the == operator on cheeseDoodle but not thingamajig, this can clearly not be the case. The equivalent in Java
cheeseDoodle.equals (thingamajig)
whilst theoretically having the same problem does have an asymmetry that might get the programmer thinking about it.
All I want is a secure system where it's easy to do anything I want. Is that too much to ask ~~ Randall Munroe
Operator overloading is commonly abused and it is always obfuscating to people who don't implicitly know your classes. It may be easier for you to type == to compare the value equality of two disparate methods, but in reality you're changing the context of the language just so you don't have to type as much. Coming in to the codebase from the outside, I have no idea that you overloaded the = method unless I go in and check the source code -- which besides being a waste of time partially defeats the purpose of using objects.
.equals take about the same effort to type, I love Java's way of enforcing sparate operations for testing value equality and reference equality. It takes time to get used to using .equals(), .compare() and .append() to replace ==, > and +, but it's worth it.
Considering that in modern code completion IDEs, == and
Incidentally, I recently switched from Java to C# and started overloading operators again. I wish I hadn't. We have three methods in our collection structure that reference objects by value. All of the ones I wrote implement an indexer which selects the members of the collection by their foreign integer ID (the only useful value for referring to a specific object). All of the ones written by my coworker, who doesn't seem to understand the concept of reading comments, are indexed by position in the structure (completely useless as the resort themselves on the fly). He never used the indexer, instead relying on an unoptimized FindObject method that performed an iterative search. Therefore, his code was always slow...and every time I would reference one of his objects, the data would be wrong or null.
I could place the blame on him not using our agreed upon syntax properly, but really it's on the confusion over the overloaded [] operator. If we'd just settled on FindByPosition and FindByReferenceID, we'd never have had a problem.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
Um, ok, I want my C# app to run on Linux, oops, it doesn't work. Guess that mono just doesn't implement all the win32 "features". How about on Solaris, oops no, doesn't run their either, aix? no, irix? no, ok how about windows 98? nope.
/.'ers to code in C.
/. would rather embrace an MS product like .net, than use a platform that, if not GPL, is at least given away for free by several companies, IBM, Sun, and Apple.
.NET. They will move the goal posts as fast as it takes to keep their suppremacy, and keep you buying software licenses.
Wonder what else it doesn't do. Does it work on my cell phone? nope, can I use it for free? no. About the only thing that it does that Java doesn't is allow
Its hard to believe that such a bastion of MS hate groups as
Before jumping on the MS band-wagon you should realize that they will never allow mono to become equal, better, or fully compatible to win32
alot of times when i look at large corporate project, old and new, i find that perl pops its head in for script maintenence, server controlling, etc,etc. it may not be the primary language for many projects, but many times it is needed in one way or another.
I've got a question for you, since you seem to like JIT so much.
Its not JIT that I like, its the HotSpot optimiser - it produces optimised code based on what is actually in need of optimising at run-time, rather than what a compiler guesses is in need of optimising at compile time.
Why the hell doesn't Java cache the compiled code between program executions?
Security. Java VMs validate classes and byte codes when they are loaded. Otherwise, someone could write garbage into the code cache, with exciting results.
The latest Java (5.0) does cache some system classes in order to significantly improve startup time.
You don't have to use JIT - if you want binaries compile your classes with GCJ. I haven't tried it, but I hear good things.
Damn right. They said "use Java", which doesn't necessarily mean "write programs in Java".
I use applications written in Java daily, some of them very heavily (Tomcat, Cocoon, Saxon, etc). I don't use them because they're written in Java: I use them because they are tools for the job I do. They could be written in COBOL for all I care.
The pro-Java lobby need to give up this attitude that people use Java applications primarily because they're written in Java. They don't. They use them because they coincidentally happen to do a task that needs doing.
C programmers used to have the same attitude (probably still do, although no-one I know admits to writing C still :-). When the latest whizz-kid successor to Java somes along, this will all change too.
--
Any language which starts by defining its main routine to be void must be brain-dead.
That said... let's stir things up!
Most enterprise systems out there are written in Cobol!
Most *New* enterprise systems are not.
:-p
With enterprise systems, it's all based on money, not what is the best language. Your (our) managers, who are almost never technical, and who think a reference is a thick book that sits on your desk, or is something HR is supposed to check, don't give a rat's ass about what the best language or algorythm is. They care only about what gets the job done the cheapest. And Since They Pay Our Salaries, They Get The Last Word. They **don't care** if it is pretty, novel, intelligent (brute force is just fine in business), an efficient algorthym, a wonderful language, whatever. Businesses with sometimes billions of dollars on the line only care about two things: (1) Does it work? (2) Does it work in a way that doesn't piss off our customers? (Notice I didn't say make them happy? Many times that doesn't even matter.)
So the question most CIO's and managers are asking is...
What language will allow us to:
- use inexperienced programmers (who are the cheapest)?
- produce an acceptable enterprice application (*not* the _best_ application)
- produce it the fastest (time = money)? And...
- make it accessible from the web.
Of course if I were a short sighted CEO or CIO, the answer would be: who cares, let's just outsource to India or China, and let them make all the decisions for us. However the fact remains that while C/C++ are very good languages, in my experience they have a steeper learning curve, generally requiring more experienced programmers; generally take longer to program an application with; and are not as well suited to web applications as is Java. Yes C/C++ can do everything Java can and more, but in enterprise business application programming it is (unfortunately) not usually about creating the best application, but about being good enough. (And by the way, I like programming in C, but I work in Java).Yes I am cynical. However, I am cynical for a reason.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
This smells like a troll to me. If you would have put a "Netcraft confirms that Java is dying" in there, I would have known for sure.
Most of these "incompatibilities" that you are citing are merely different libraries, some of which aren't even produced by Sun. Some of those libraries aren't even in competition with one another (e.g. J2ME, J2SE, J2EE). They aren't "incompatible" with one another if they aren't trying to solve the same problem.
I believe that Sun fears incompatibility when it comes to the language, not its libraries. People have been making third-party libraries for ages, and open-sourcing Java isn't going to stop that. Pointing to copious libraries and saying "Look at those incompatibilities! You might as well open up Java!" is a deceptive argument that grossly misrepresents the current state of affairs.