But that doesnt remove the fact that java is here to stay and has proven itself more than enough in the enterprise. So why slashdot's hostility towards it remains is beyond me.
This hostility is so boring and extremely old fashioned and reactionary.
I have seen exactly the same thing in the 70s when developers were complaining about procedural code, and wanted to keep their 'GOTO's.
I have also seen the same thing in the 80s when the idea of using C or C++ in place of assembler was consider too innovative, slow, and demanding of memory.
And again, in the 90s, there was the same reaction against the use of OOP.
Now that procedural development, the use of high level languages, and OOP are now mainstream, the same old arguments are being used against safe and VM-based languages like Java.
b) Java isn't interpreted anymore... its just-in-time compiled and then executed as native code. A bit of a start-up pause while the classes compile, that's all.
These days it is even better than that. There is no start-up pause for compilation. The VM starts interpreting bytecode immediately, while the Hotspot profiler thread starts looking for sections of code to translate to very highly optimised native code.
That is a very easy comment to make, but I don't think that it is fair comment considering E-Bay is possibly the highest volume website ever, and I doubt that the developers of that site are stupid enough to develop the site using a slow technology. I'm afraid the 'slow' argument is getting very old fashioned and rather boring. Java is used for extremely high volume websites, dealing with thousands of transactions every second.
It is time the 'slow' argument was finally put to rest.
Actually I think we are getting muddled up here. You began by saying that Java (as in back end/server side Java) was something we all use and should appreciate. I'm saying no one cares about that and it is highly swappable with any other competing technology.
Aw, come on. Don't use some obscure, rare example as a means of "proving" that java is good.
I picked Linpack because it is a benchmark for raw floating point math performance. This was the final area where (until recently) Java could be criticised as being inadequate in terms of performance. The 2004 Linpack benchmarks show Sun's JDK 1.5 as being within 6% of optimised C++ for floating point numerical work - extremely impressive.
If the majority of java code sucks
The majority of code written in any language sucks.
I've got no choice to but to state that java itself sucks. If it's so goddamned difficult to write GOOD java code, then that's a fundamental problem with the language.
In that case, we would have to say that C and C++ have serious problems. The use of these languages over the past 15-20 years has led to the current problems with buffer overruns, viruses and worms that plague major operating systems and languages.
Aw, come on. Don't use some obscure, rare example as a means of "proving" that java is good. Look at the majority of software out there that's written in java. It just plain sucks.
Ok. Let's take an obscure rare example like... E-Bay!
The entire site is written in Java. It is one of the most high-performance, reliable and successful websites ever written. Your bank uses Java. All major stock exchanges (with tens of thousands of transactions per second) use Java.
It takes forever to fire up due to the VM,
Java 1.5 now has VM start-up times in a few hundred milliseconds at most.
is sluggish on GUI response,
Not now. Have you tried Swing or SWT on Java 1.5?
and soaks up RAM like a sponge (near 300MB of RAM to use the iPlanet web server admin interface?? WTF!?)
So don't use the iPlanet Web server.
Face it, java may offer some advantages to the programmer, but the end user suffers for it. Plus, I've seen far more java exception errors than I've ever seen segmentation faults.
With good reason. Most errors in C/C++ programs that corrupt memory are hidden and never discovered. These lead to problems that allow viruses and worms to attack. Maybe it is just me, but I would rather use a language that threw an exception whenever I did something wrong..
Other than people who work in that industry no end-user cares a damn about what goes into running enterprise (god I HATE that word) solutions. Stop trying to pretend otherwise. You act like every little pleb out there owes a big thank you to people who write this crap in Java, ASP,.NET whatever for those wonderful big companies that keep our beloved economy moving.
But they do. These systems are designed because they can provide services that really work, and that stay working under heavy load.
And personally, for me as the end-user, I won't even use a site/service if it needs Java, it's just too much a security risk.
In what way? Could you mention a single security breach due to Java in the past few years?
I have permanently disabled Java in all browsers I have used for the last 6 years or more and will continue to do so.
The sites I mention don't require Java in the browser at all. They are using Java on the server to provide your web pages, and to process your data.
P.s thankfully I have never encountered Java on eBay.
Yes you have! The entire E-bay site and infrastructure runs on Java.
Well, for one thing, there's the issue of freedom.
My view (and I could be wrong) is that most developers don't care. The zero financial price is the real reason for it's success.
Then there's the fact that it is slow when compared to most other languages which are used for designing large scale systems (C, C++, etc.).
This hasn't been true for years. I don't understand why this myth persists when almost all benchmarks have shown equivalent Java code to be within 80-100% of C,C++ speed for some time.
Then also, it is viewed as a favorite of suits, and therefore by (admittedly somewhat childish) knee-jerk reaction, it is derided by geeks.
If you look at the volume of Java projects on sourceforge and other sites, I would suggest that there are a lot of geeks who don't deride Java.
and the ability to run java bytecode when the discs boot could allow a whole new range of lockdown facilities on the disks.
How is this different from running any other software when the discs boot? The use of Java bytecode has no relevance to lockdown.
Not to mention the amount of complexity having network & JVM functionality must be introducing to the end units. Surely even mass production wil struggle to bring such complex devices down to sane prices in the near future.
What complexity? Most new mobile phones have JVMs built in. There has been no struggle to bring these 'complex devices' to 'sane prices'.
Let's focus on what we can control versus what is outside of our control. We can not hope to control the global temperature; mankind's actions simply have too little effect.
This is wrong. Mankind's actions have lead to a dramatic increase in CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere. This is a major effect and has certainly shown that we can control the global temperature. So far we have been controlling in the wrong way.
In other words we need to stop wasting energy on the useless and work on adapting intelligently.
Adapting intelligently would partly consist of putting a lot of work into stopping the waste of energy and so cutting back on CO2 production.
Right. So let's not care about global warming because the human race will survive. After possible mass migration, famine, disease, wars over resources.
Well, I still haven't understood why this game is so slow on old machines, just to give an example. Maybe it's very badly programmed, I don't know. It's great btw:)
On older machines it may be using an older JVM - maybe Microsoft's one that shipped with Windows.
another factor that might invalidate tests is that volcanoes/ methane deposits are so big, and disperse gasses so high and over such a large area, that it is much harder to measure than the exhaust of a tailpipe or a smokestack.
That makes it easier to measure, as you can correlate gas changes measured at different places in the world during the time of eruption.
The fact that volcanoes don't produce that much is clear because we know approximately how much carbon dioxide we are producing, and we know how much has increased in the atmosphere. The problem is where much of it is going - the question of carbon sinks, not where it is coming from.
But really the problem is that we have too many people populating coastlines and owning property. This is only an issue because unlike our caveman ancestors we cannot migrate anymore without loss of money and property. So really this is an economic issue not an environmental one. The human race will be fine though. We will have to move to higher more northerly ground until the next Ice age approaches and drives us south again, but unless we nuke ourselves, warm weather is not going to wipe us all out.
I would largely agree. However, it is more than just coastlines that would be affected. Changes in rainfall patterns could kill hundreds of millions or worse.
During the times of the vikings in Labrador they used to be able to grow grapes. They found grape seeds in the settlements. Try growing grapes now in Labrador. Not a chance!
These were localised changes (like the 'mini ice age' in Europe). There was only minor impact on sea levels. We are now talking about global changes.
Lets be frank, there have been multiple mass extinctions. And many of these happen in the wink of a eye WRT to the earth.
So let's help make another one?
I know this is going to sound silly, but imagine how much heat is generated by six billion bodies, and their associated infrastructure? Not insignificant!
Yes it is, compared to the heat given off by other animals.
I believe he asked for "prominent Mac OSX apps that are developed with Swing". 1. NeoOffice isn't a Swing app, or a least the vast majority of its interface isn't Swing. 2. NeoOffice isn't prominent, it's just a small fork of OpenOffice. That was pretty desperate dude...
You fail it!
Yes, I did. With good reason. There aren't prominent Mac OSX apps developed with Swing. Almost no-one writes Java specifically for MacOSX, or Linux, or Windows. They write portable Java applications, which are able to run on those platforms.
There may be good reason to target MacOSX with Java, but in principle, it is Java used wrongly. What Apple provides is a very-high quality implementation of Swing that allows general portable Java applications to look like Aqua when running on MacOSX.
Asking for Java applications that target MacOSX is as silly as to ask for PERL or Python applications that target Pentium chips.
You truly do live in a wibbly-wobbly world of your own. You stagger me with your delusion.
I have a suggestion. Why not back up your arguments with evidence, not insults?
I'm not suggesting you have not had bad problems with Swing. We all have. However, you seem to be extrapolating your experience to others and stating that anyone who does not claim to share your point of view is 'lying' or 'deluded'.
I don't think this is helpful in backing your case. For example, I mentioned that NetBeans (a Swing application had won an award from developers. Thousands of developers considered it to be a fine application that was easy to use and fast. You almost certainly don't agree with them. Fine. but to label them all 'deluded halfwits' makes you look bad, not them.
If you wish to have a reasoned debate, don't post as anonymous, and back your points of view with actual evidence. Until then, you are only posting opinion and insults, not anything worth replying to.
While the science may not know exactly why the earth warms and cools over thousands of years.
It is to do with changes in orbits circularity and axis tilt.
The fact is that is does, and the last time I checked there were no cars around thousands of years ago during the last warming cycle.
The problem is not change, it is fast change. Current warming is occuring on a timescale of decades, not millenia.
As recently proven (look it up yourself), every time a volcano goes off it produces more green house gasses than mankind has ever created since the industrial revolution.
I have. This is nonsense.
From "Volcanoes and Society" published the University of Michigan:
"Carbon dioxide is one of the main causes of the Greenhouse effect, but there are not significant amounts for the carbon dioxide emitted from volcanic eruptions to contribute to the Greenhouse effect. Humanity is responsible for emitting 110 billion tons of carbon dioxide each year, while volcanoes only contribute 10 billion tons".
So sure, we know green house gasses warm the planet and that pollution is bad on a local level, but if you think the small amount of damage mankind has done to the planet is going to raise global temperatures even by 2 degrees every hundred years, then your ego is about the size of most of the politicians baking the idea.
Pollution is bad globally. The CO2 concentration in the atmosphere has risen more more than 30% in the past couple of centuries, and that is due to us, not volcanoes. This increase is getting much faster. Your '2 degrees every hundred years' could well be an underestimate.
The Earth has been through many, many periods in its history where it was warmer than it is today.
But (apart from the occasional meteor strike) this happened slowly.
We are now talking about change in terms of decades, not millenia.
Also, just because the Earth was much warmer naturally, does not mean we would like to live in those conditions. We have build our cities and farms and industries in conditions which have been stable for thousands of years or more. Even minor shifts in temperature, rainfall or sea level would cause significant and widespread problems for us.
This was before cars or factories. It managed to cool itself down.
Again, this took a very long time. If we help heat things up we will have to deal with the consequences for a very long time.
There is still much debate about global warming in scientific circles. There is much less debate in the media.
I would say it is exactly the other way around. Scientifically, it is pretty settled, but the media continue to report debate.
Slashdot Mirror
Joe Sixpack inserts his new DVD into the drive and...
"NullPointerException? WTF?"
Surely better that an uncaught C buffer overflow?
But that doesnt remove the fact that java is here to stay and has proven itself more than enough in the enterprise. So why slashdot's hostility towards it remains is beyond me.
This hostility is so boring and extremely old fashioned and reactionary.
I have seen exactly the same thing in the 70s when developers were complaining about procedural code, and wanted to keep their 'GOTO's.
I have also seen the same thing in the 80s when the idea of using C or C++ in place of assembler was consider too innovative, slow, and demanding of memory.
And again, in the 90s, there was the same reaction against the use of OOP.
Now that procedural development, the use of high level languages, and OOP are now mainstream, the same old arguments are being used against safe and VM-based languages like Java.
b) Java isn't interpreted anymore... its just-in-time compiled and then executed as native code. A bit of a start-up pause while the classes compile, that's all.
These days it is even better than that. There is no start-up pause for compilation. The VM starts interpreting bytecode immediately, while the Hotspot profiler thread starts looking for sections of code to translate to very highly optimised native code.
show me a version of java that isnt a piece of crap and I might admit you have a point.
The Java that runs E-Bay - the most profitable website ever. I think you may have to concede the point.
That would explain why eBay is so slow.
That is a very easy comment to make, but I don't think that it is fair comment considering E-Bay is possibly the highest volume website ever, and I doubt that the developers of that site are stupid enough to develop the site using a slow technology. I'm afraid the 'slow' argument is getting very old fashioned and rather boring. Java is used for extremely high volume websites, dealing with thousands of transactions every second.
It is time the 'slow' argument was finally put to rest.
Actually I think we are getting muddled up here. You began by saying that Java (as in back end/server side Java) was something we all use and should appreciate. I'm saying no one cares about that and it is highly swappable with any other competing technology.
What other competing technology?
Aw, come on. Don't use some obscure, rare example as a means of "proving" that java is good.
I picked Linpack because it is a benchmark for raw floating point math performance. This was the final area where (until recently) Java could be criticised as being inadequate in terms of performance. The 2004 Linpack benchmarks show Sun's JDK 1.5 as being within 6% of optimised C++ for floating point numerical work - extremely impressive.
If the majority of java code sucks
The majority of code written in any language sucks.
I've got no choice to but to state that java itself sucks. If it's so goddamned difficult to write GOOD java code, then that's a fundamental problem with the language.
In that case, we would have to say that C and C++ have serious problems. The use of these languages over the past 15-20 years has led to the current problems with buffer overruns, viruses and worms that plague major operating systems and languages.
Aw, come on. Don't use some obscure, rare example as a means of "proving" that java is good. Look at the majority of software out there that's written in java. It just plain sucks.
Ok. Let's take an obscure rare example like... E-Bay!
The entire site is written in Java. It is one of the most high-performance, reliable and successful websites ever written. Your bank uses Java. All major stock exchanges (with tens of thousands of transactions per second) use Java.
It takes forever to fire up due to the VM,
Java 1.5 now has VM start-up times in a few hundred milliseconds at most.
is sluggish on GUI response,
Not now. Have you tried Swing or SWT on Java 1.5?
and soaks up RAM like a sponge (near 300MB of RAM to use the iPlanet web server admin interface?? WTF!?)
So don't use the iPlanet Web server.
Face it, java may offer some advantages to the programmer, but the end user suffers for it. Plus, I've seen far more java exception errors than I've ever seen segmentation faults.
With good reason. Most errors in C/C++ programs that corrupt memory are hidden and never discovered. These lead to problems that allow viruses and worms to attack. Maybe it is just me, but I would rather use a language that threw an exception whenever I did something wrong..
A patent on something that almost everyone who has ever written a website marketing anything already does.
No this isn't a shot at Java this is a shot at over building things. What's next Java in my car?
, 39185006,00.htm
It may already be there:
http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/software/0,39044164
Stop being difficult for the sake of it.
.NET whatever for those wonderful big companies that keep our beloved economy moving.
I am simply pointing out what Java can do.
Other than people who work in that industry no end-user cares a damn about what goes into running enterprise (god I HATE that word) solutions. Stop trying to pretend otherwise. You act like every little pleb out there owes a big thank you to people who write this crap in Java, ASP,
But they do. These systems are designed because they can provide services that really work, and that stay working under heavy load.
And personally, for me as the end-user, I won't even use a site/service if it needs Java, it's just too much a security risk.
In what way? Could you mention a single security breach due to Java in the past few years?
I have permanently disabled Java in all browsers I have used for the last 6 years or more and will continue to do so.
The sites I mention don't require Java in the browser at all. They are using Java on the server to provide your web pages, and to process your data.
P.s thankfully I have never encountered Java on eBay.
Yes you have! The entire E-bay site and infrastructure runs on Java.
thanks for telling me what NOT to buy.
Better not buy any new mobile phone then. Virtually all of them come with Java.
If Sun does not open source Java sooner, it will lose it to Linux.
Show me a version of Linux that can run within a few hundred kilobytes of memory, like embedded Java, and I might agree you have a point.
Well, for one thing, there's the issue of freedom.
My view (and I could be wrong) is that most developers don't care. The zero financial price is the real reason for it's success.
Then there's the fact that it is slow when compared to most other languages which are used for designing large scale systems (C, C++, etc.).
This hasn't been true for years. I don't understand why this myth persists when almost all benchmarks have shown equivalent Java code to be within 80-100% of C,C++ speed for some time.
Then also, it is viewed as a favorite of suits, and therefore by (admittedly somewhat childish) knee-jerk reaction, it is derided by geeks.
If you look at the volume of Java projects on sourceforge and other sites, I would suggest that there are a lot of geeks who don't deride Java.
Because Java is slow, takes a lot of processor cycles,
As shown by Linpack benchmarks run last year, Java can run at up to 95% of the speed of optimised C++.
and eats memory like there's no tomorrow.
Embedded Java systems can run in as little as a few hundred KB of memory.
This is going to seriously hinder blu-ray adaption.
Just as the use of Java on mobile phones has (not) hindered the production of Java games and applications for those phones?
A Java implementation means at least 30% more processor power and memory than otherwise needed.
Why not look at the real situation and not present a years-old outdated view of Java?
Note: the majority of people couldn't give a hang about back-end, so called 'enterprise' solutions with Java)
Yes, because, like, no-one uses E-Bay, banks, stock-markets, airline on-line booking systems.
I'm sure the majority of people couldn't give a hang about these.
This just smacks of network controlled DRM
Why?
and the ability to run java bytecode when the discs boot could allow a whole new range of lockdown facilities on the disks.
How is this different from running any other software when the discs boot? The use of Java bytecode has no relevance to lockdown.
Not to mention the amount of complexity having network & JVM functionality must be introducing to the end units. Surely even mass production wil struggle to bring such complex devices down to sane prices in the near future.
What complexity? Most new mobile phones have JVMs built in. There has been no struggle to bring these 'complex devices' to 'sane prices'.
Let's focus on what we can control versus what is outside of our control. We can not hope to control the global temperature; mankind's actions simply have too little effect.
This is wrong. Mankind's actions have lead to a dramatic increase in CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere. This is a major effect and has certainly shown that we can control the global temperature. So far we have been controlling in the wrong way.
In other words we need to stop wasting energy on the useless and work on adapting intelligently.
Adapting intelligently would partly consist of putting a lot of work into stopping the waste of energy and so cutting back on CO2 production.
We adapted then, we will do so again.
Right. So let's not care about global warming because the human race will survive. After possible mass migration, famine, disease, wars over resources.
Well, I still haven't understood why this game is so slow on old machines, just to give an example. Maybe it's very badly programmed, I don't know. It's great btw :)
On older machines it may be using an older JVM - maybe Microsoft's one that shipped with Windows.
another factor that might invalidate tests is that volcanoes/ methane deposits are so big, and disperse gasses so high and over such a large area, that it is much harder to measure than the exhaust of a tailpipe or a smokestack.
That makes it easier to measure, as you can correlate gas changes measured at different places in the world during the time of eruption.
The fact that volcanoes don't produce that much is clear because we know approximately how much carbon dioxide we are producing, and we know how much has increased in the atmosphere. The problem is where much of it is going - the question of carbon sinks, not where it is coming from.
But really the problem is that we have too many people populating coastlines and owning property. This is only an issue because unlike our caveman ancestors we cannot migrate anymore without loss of money and property. So really this is an economic issue not an environmental one. The human race will be fine though. We will have to move to higher more northerly ground until the next Ice age approaches and drives us south again, but unless we nuke ourselves, warm weather is not going to wipe us all out.
I would largely agree. However, it is more than just coastlines that would be affected. Changes in rainfall patterns could kill hundreds of millions or worse.
And how do you know it did not happen quickly?
Isotope ratios in ice cores and rocks.
During the times of the vikings in Labrador they used to be able to grow grapes. They found grape seeds in the settlements. Try growing grapes now in Labrador. Not a chance!
These were localised changes (like the 'mini ice age' in Europe). There was only minor impact on sea levels. We are now talking about global changes.
Lets be frank, there have been multiple mass extinctions. And many of these happen in the wink of a eye WRT to the earth.
So let's help make another one?
I know this is going to sound silly, but imagine how much heat is generated by six billion bodies, and their associated infrastructure? Not insignificant!
Yes it is, compared to the heat given off by other animals.
I believe he asked for "prominent Mac OSX apps that are developed with Swing". 1. NeoOffice isn't a Swing app, or a least the vast majority of its interface isn't Swing. 2. NeoOffice isn't prominent, it's just a small fork of OpenOffice. That was pretty desperate dude...
You fail it!
Yes, I did. With good reason. There aren't prominent Mac OSX apps developed with Swing. Almost no-one writes Java specifically for MacOSX, or Linux, or Windows. They write portable Java applications, which are able to run on those platforms.
There may be good reason to target MacOSX with Java, but in principle, it is Java used wrongly. What Apple provides is a very-high quality implementation of Swing that allows general portable Java applications to look like Aqua when running on MacOSX.
Asking for Java applications that target MacOSX is as silly as to ask for PERL or Python applications that target Pentium chips.
I was naive to have fallen into the trap!
You truly do live in a wibbly-wobbly world of your own. You stagger me with your delusion.
I have a suggestion. Why not back up your arguments with evidence, not insults?
I'm not suggesting you have not had bad problems with Swing. We all have. However, you seem to be extrapolating your experience to others and stating that anyone who does not claim to share your point of view is 'lying' or 'deluded'.
I don't think this is helpful in backing your case. For example, I mentioned that NetBeans (a Swing application had won an award from developers. Thousands of developers considered it to be a fine application that was easy to use and fast. You almost certainly don't agree with them. Fine. but to label them all 'deluded halfwits' makes you look bad, not them.
If you wish to have a reasoned debate, don't post as anonymous, and back your points of view with actual evidence. Until then, you are only posting opinion and insults, not anything worth replying to.
While the science may not know exactly why the earth warms and cools over thousands of years.
It is to do with changes in orbits circularity and axis tilt.
The fact is that is does, and the last time I checked there were no cars around thousands of years ago during the last warming cycle.
The problem is not change, it is fast change. Current warming is occuring on a timescale of decades, not millenia.
As recently proven (look it up yourself), every time a volcano goes off it produces more green house gasses than mankind has ever created since the industrial revolution.
I have. This is nonsense.
From "Volcanoes and Society" published the University of Michigan:
"Carbon dioxide is one of the main causes of the Greenhouse effect, but there are not significant amounts for the carbon dioxide emitted from volcanic eruptions to contribute to the Greenhouse effect. Humanity is responsible for emitting 110 billion tons of carbon dioxide each year, while volcanoes only contribute 10 billion tons".
So sure, we know green house gasses warm the planet and that pollution is bad on a local level, but if you think the small amount of damage mankind has done to the planet is going to raise global temperatures even by 2 degrees every hundred years, then your ego is about the size of most of the politicians baking the idea.
Pollution is bad globally. The CO2 concentration in the atmosphere has risen more more than 30% in the past couple of centuries, and that is due to us, not volcanoes. This increase is getting much faster. Your '2 degrees every hundred years' could well be an underestimate.
The Earth has been through many, many periods in its history where it was warmer than it is today.
But (apart from the occasional meteor strike) this happened slowly.
We are now talking about change in terms of decades, not millenia.
Also, just because the Earth was much warmer naturally, does not mean we would like to live in those conditions. We have build our cities and farms and industries in conditions which have been stable for thousands of years or more. Even minor shifts in temperature, rainfall or sea level would cause significant and widespread problems for us.
This was before cars or factories. It managed to cool itself down.
Again, this took a very long time. If we help heat things up we will have to deal with the consequences for a very long time.
There is still much debate about global warming in scientific circles. There is much less debate in the media.
I would say it is exactly the other way around. Scientifically, it is pretty settled, but the media continue to report debate.