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James Gosling on Java
prostoalex writes "It's been ten years since the official introduction of Java - a programming language combined with virtual machine and a class library. ZDNet published an interview with James Gosling, the creator of Java, who talks about the project's past, present and future."
Why the hell did the interviewer decide to turn it into a "how did/does/will Java work with MS technologies" diatribe?
I mean, theyre so disparate in ideaology, while I can understand some of the relationships, why on earth bring them up with the creator of a language that MS has deliberately shunned when they couldnt get it to work "their way"?
Very puzzling. Poor journalism in my opinion.
...both interiorlly, and exteriorlly.
Even more amazing is that as smart a guy as he is, his social skills leave a lot to be desired
;)
In what way is that amazing? I think that most of us here on Slashdot are in a reasonably high percentile when it comes to intelligence, and probably fewer than 10% of the members here have social skills any better than an 11-year-old girl's.
On a side note, I somehow doubt he's going to hang out at DevShed so much after your soon-to-be +5 comment generates traffic. Imagine the personal e-mail equivalent of a good, old-fashioned Slashdotting.
From TFA:
This is nit-picking, I know, but I was under the impression that scripting languages were actually defined by the presence of an actively-running interpreter during execution, making it possible to, e.g., construct and execute statements at runtime with things like PHP's exec() or Lua's do(file|string) functions (see: http://www.lua.org/pil/8.html for discussion on dofile and Lua's status as a scripting language). I wasn't aware that capability for rapid prototyping or language speed had anything to do with it.
Taking that into consideration, then, would Java with JIT qualify as an interpreted or compiled language? I'm not sure, myself---any thoughts?
That aside, a solid interview. Java looks to be pretty interesting; though in its current form it does bug the hell out of me (System.out.println()? Yeah, yeah, OO, but come on, three nested levels of scope just to get to a command line?), its progress has been impressive, and it's an innovative idea.
Furthering the off-topic rant, you're right.
Basically every job requires you to become a salesman. You sell yourself on a piece of paper, then come in to close the deal. News flash, employers: I'M NOT A SALESMAN, nor am I trying to be.
I sit behind a desk in a dark corner of your offices and make stuff work. Human interaction is a very small part of the deal. And there's no salesmanship at all. So... why do job interviews and the whole stupid hiring process treat me like I should be this expert salesman?
All they'll get from this process is some snake oil salesman pretending to be a systems administrator / programmer / IT person / etc that will have no idea what he is doing, but since he's such a MAGNIFICENT "people person", they look the other way!
But when *I* screw up, Mr. Anti-Social, it's not the same.
Complete crap. And yes, I, too, am fucking bitter. Sue me.
This is a sig. Deal with it.
Eclipse has 2,425,709 lines of Java code and runs on any J2SE 1.4 (or newer) compliant JRE from any vendor on many platforms (the essential parts of it will run even on PDAs). I don't think any scripting language would have been up to this task.
My opinion is that Java is the best thing that could have possibly happened in the software development field in the last 20 years. The fact that it is an openly specified object-oriented runtime suitable for a *huge* variety of configurations (desktop, middleware, embedded, etc) is a blessing. Developers have been able to learn one language and develop any kind of applications on any platforms (while reusing many of the skills). Also, vendors can target a much wider market when they do not have to focus on a single platform. Not mentioning that Linux owes a lot of its success to Java.
Unsafe mode was added to C# to allow the grandfathering of massive volumes of ill-behaved code into .NET systems. Microsoft does not like giving up old code bases.
And Sun, instead, creates millions of lines of untested, immature C code and adds it to their Sun Java implementation (just look at the Java2D code). Frankly, I trust even Microsoft's libraries more than that.
Microsoft's claim that sprinkling "unmanaged code" everywhere in your system is superior to linking to external libraries is very strange.
Unsafe statements are explicitly marked in C#, and they are limited to unsafe modules. C# is exactly the same as JNI in that regard, but C# provides you with a much better language to write JNI-like modules in, a language that is far safer than C/C++ even in unsafe mode, and a language that actually works across systems.
What does the phrase "tightly limit unsafe code to just the statements where it is needed, often just a single statement" mean? How can you limit something that can be everywhere?
It means that as a programmer developing a piece of code that needs to do something unsafe, it's better for me if I can compile almost all of my code in safe mode and only have a single line of unsafe code, than being forced to write an entire JNI module in C/C++.
Now they're claiming it's okay to put buffer overflow vulnerabilities in your code because it's convenient for the programmer. They just don't seem to understand security.
You keep confusing safety and security; safety is neither necessary nor sufficient for security. Most Java applications are, in fact, not secure at all.
C# supports runtime safety in a well-designed and time-tested framework, which is helpful for building secure systems. But forcing people to use only safe constructs does not improve security any further, it actually makes it worse.
I never really bought the "social skills" bunk. I think chitchat and small talk is useless and stupid so I usually don't engage in it. Does this mean I don't have "social skills"? As long as you are articulate, and unless you are in public relations, fuck "social skills".
Stereotypical pseudo-rational geek attitude.
The inconsequential "chitchat and small talk" are the manner in which we find out more about the person we're dealing with before things get more serious, allowing us to "feel our way round" when we are unsure. This may apply to both strangers and people we're currently unsure of; don't bring on the heavy stuff first. They're the manner in which we show respect by asking questions about the other person that may not *directly* involve the business we have with them; of course, this may open up opportunities we hadn't considered, possibly leading to friendship and/or greater business involvement.
Not everyone is equally good at this. Not everyone places equal importance on it. That's part of the healthy mix of personalities that push some people to work in public-facing jobs, and others to work in more "human-phobic" areas (such as the more technical aspects of computer hardware). It's okay to not be a "small talk" person, as you are.
On the other hand, to criticise it for being "useless" (because it doesn't serve any obvious purpose) smacks of blinkered short-sightedness and the kind of (phoney) rationalisation of their own behaviour that geeks like to indulge in.
Frankly, the kind of people who come out with this kind of stuff probably consider themselves "rational". Actually, that displays a laughable (and verging-on-the-autistic) lack of self-awareness. Geeks are no more "rational" than a lot of other people; they have their own neuroses and obsessions that are obvious when you take a step back. For example, to use the same surface "rationalisation", what purpose does being fanatical about "Star Trek", an entirely fictitious TV show serve? None. Surely it's more rational or logical (*) to live in the real world.
Of course, the fan will explain how it represents the problems of today's world in a semi-abstract manner, blah blah... the more insightful will mention that it provides an outlet for the geek personality type. Point is; if they are forced to explain it in depth, they'll put the effort into considering their own behaviour that they won't even waste considering anyone else's. (Although they won't explain it as an excuse to escape the real world or dress in fantasy costumes; that would be too close to the bone).
So, to get back to the point, your failure to even recognise the purpose of small talk (whether you like it or not) smacks of the most arrogant and deluded abuse of rationality to justify your own shortcomings and behaviour.
(*) Reminds me of a friend I had in my early teens who was into sci-fi, had a crap geeky sense-of-humour and an obsession with Spock and "logic". He was no more logical than anyone else; in fact, sometimes he was downright weird. In retrospect, I reckon he was (slightly) autistic in some form.
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