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Google Engineer Decries Complexity of Java, C++
snydeq writes "Google distinguished engineer Rob Pike ripped the use of Java and C++ during his keynote at OSCON, saying that these 'industrial programming languages' are way too complex and not adequately suited for today's computing environments. 'I think these languages are too hard to use, too subtle, too intricate. They're far too verbose and their subtlety, intricacy and verbosity seem to be increasing over time. They're oversold, and used far too broadly,' Pike said. 'How do we have stuff like this [get to be] the standard way of computing that is taught in schools and is used in industry? [This sort of programming] is very bureaucratic. Every step must be justified to the compiler.' Pike also spoke out against the performance of interpreted languages and dynamic typing."
For an engineer working on the sort of massively complex computing problems that face the likes of Google he is entirely correct that the likes of Java and C++ are over-engineered and unnecessary for what he faces. That's spot on (I imagine, I'm not a Google engineer).
But most of today's computing problems aren't like that. The software industry has exploded in the past couple of decades, with close to every single business now demanding bespoke development in the form of websites, desktop apps, etc.
Those tasks are carried out by "code monkey" level people. People who need the over-engineering of a modern language because they're not really capable of writing code anywhere near the processor layer. They're puzzle solvers - people who glue together cookie-cutter libraries with the minimum of thinking. The people who use the languages Pike is decrying aren't the ones who're writing the frameworks and libraries that make it all so complicated, they're the ones who have to use libraries because they can't write code to do what the library does for them. It's hand-holding. It's necessary. Maybe not in the offices of Google, but definitely in the offices of "Joe Random Web Design Inc".
http://twitter.com/onion2k
...perhaps he should find another line of work. Quite frankly, I love C++, and Java to a lesser degree. C and its big brother C++ are great languages to learn. They teach you more about how the computer uses the code you're writing than something like CodeBlocks where you just fit them together in the right order. Good luck debugging software at a real-world company if you don't like C.
As for Java, I think it's a pretty inefficient language, but so is C# and .NET applications in general. Any managed code has overhead.
If you hate Java so much, why did you base your phone OS around it?
I could see if he was railing against Assembly or Fortran or something, but then even still many people love Assembly too. My Machine Architecture teacher was a fiend for it, and once I learned how it really worked it wasn't that bad for me either. I, for one, am proud to say that I could manually write machine code (if I really had to) though I have no plans to do so. I think every true computer programmer should BE ABLE to do so, whether or not they ever do. That would, in my eyes, make a programmer worth their salt.
If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits
You sound inflexible and stuck in an era of programming long since left behind. I've worked with your kind before, but then you got "removed" from the project for causing too many problems and put in the corner glass case of emotion until one day you snapped and beat a keyboard against a desk and the HR department had a "real" (albeit stupid) reason to get rid of you as all the actual reasons they should have got rid of you for just didn't fly legally...
Why? I haven't used anything he's ever done.
I have used stuff Google has done.
What he's created is shit no one cares about.
I've written almost all the same sort of things he has, and guess what, no one has used my stuff either!
Just because you do something doesn't mean anyone else cares or that its important.
Plan9 is a shining example of 'no one gives a fuck'
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
He and I are very much alike.
I too have written OSes and programming languages that no one gives a flying fuck about :)
The things he had any involvement with that people do care about, like UTF8 aren't because of anything he did, but the work of others.
He's just a blow hard. He's one of those 'If I didn't invent the wheel, it sucks' guys.
He offers nothing of actual value.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Your inability to include the O and the Es in people is probably another indication of our lowering levels of education.
Really? It takes me longer to type and read this kind of short hand than if you just typed it all out.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Just out of curiosity: what have you accomplished?
So the only people that can be critical of anyone are people that have some big publicly recognized accomplishments? That's a pretty small list.
Face it, the guy goes out of his was to be a blow-hard. Being a blow-hard might be acceptable to many if you've also done some incredible thing to earn respect. But in reality, he really hasn't. UTF-8? Plan 9? Not really terribly important contributions. More than I've done.. but then I'm not a giant blow-hard trying to malign myself against some of the most successful technologies, in favor of MY personally invented technologies (that later really went nowhere).
The point the GP was trying to make wasn't "I'm great, this guy sucks". But merely "This guy thinks he's better and smarter than everyone else... but his actual accomplishments in what HE'S developed to replace those technologies in no way measure up the his fanatical criticism of them"
AccountKiller