Sun Announces Its First Laptop

boarder8925 writes "Enterprise computer maker Sun Microsystems announced its first-ever laptop yesterday, saying the machine was designed to let engineers and scientists perform demanding computer tasks away from their desks. Sun, which has seen sales fall for the last four years, said that it was also lowering prices for some of its computers by up to 40 percent."

Comments

Great, a $340 Sun Laptop like my Linux Laptop

[WillAffleckUW]

oh.
wait.

um, $3400?

oh well ...

Re:Partnering with Sun?

[vegetasaiyajin]

Quite the opposite, in my opinion. They finally fixed all the stupid stuff.
If you say that type-unsafe containers, no enums and no normal library for various threading feature was somehow a better state of affairs, then you do not know what you are talking about.


It is clear you the one who don't know what you talk about. They didn't fix anything.

Java Generics ARE NOT type safe and that is why they are badly designed.
They are designed only to hide casts, but introduce a lot of new subtle errors because they are not typesafe.
If they are as typesafe as you say, then why do the new checkedList, checkedMap, checkedSet, etc. methods exist in java.util.Collections?

Very simple, because Java generics are not type safe.

The purpose of generics in most programming language is to provide type safety and enhance performance through the elimination of casts. Java generics do neither. They only hide casts and force you to used stupid methods like checkedList,etc. to achieve type safety. These methods could have been added to the old language version without problems. It's a disgrace that a language with "generics" requires that kind of method to achive type safety.

Regarding enums. They are the worst implementation of enums I have seen. They are implemented as classes and as such they are prone to very strange errors if several ClassLoaders are used, as is the case in most application server environments.

The worst part of the new Java language changes is that they are designed so that ignorant people like you, who do not know their implications, believe they are achieving type safety/better performance when in fact they are not.