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Steve Fosdick fozzy@pelvoux.demon.co.uk writes:
- Including much more useful functionality in the standard
library (such as a GUI toolkit) which means that many more things are done in a standard way.
I actually see this as a *disadvantage*. What I like in a language is a small, compact, memorable, consistent, very standard core -- not the acres of libraries which make up the current standard Java. I'm still plodding through texts... as soon as I think I know roughly what's available, someone seems to invent more ;-)
Neill Newman neill@entora.co.uk writes:
yes, Bill Joy (the main guy who wrote Java, or oak as it was origionally called) didn't like the way in which OO was bolted on to C to form part of C++.
C++ -- tying legs onto a dog and calling it an octopus. Now where's that quote from?
I believe he also took on board the concept of garbage collection, memory management, and a clean OO design from smalltalk and other languages.
Is Java really a "clean OO design from smalltalk"? Is there a non-trivial superclass which is an ancestor of everything? int?
I would not entirely agree that the Java API is as extensive as C/C++ or other languages. There are some things that are very very dificult to achieve using Java, and what seems like a simple task in one language /can/ be very dificult in Java if it is not part of the API.
An advantage of starting with a ball of mud is that no matter how much mud you add to it, you still have a ball of mud. If you start with a diamond and add mud, you have a muddy diamond. (Paraphrasing from a programming textbook I once read.)
Alexis Lee alexis@turton.com writes:
C++ is a decent language if you know what you're doing. Think of it as a stallion, compared to Java's compliant mare. Sometimes you need to wrastle, but it always has the power. Oh, and while it will never refuse a jump, it might get both your necks broken when you fu.
Nice image. Sorry, I just wanted to quote that.
[...] This gives performance near equal to C, and (wild unfounded guess) probably much better than any loose-typed or philosophy-designed language like PHP or Scheme.
"I think PHP could become the BASIC of the next Years" -- Thies, PHP maintainer.
You actually slight Scheme very badly here, you know. Yes, you'd expect me to say that, but even so! Putting it with PHP?
I read the report today showing a scheme webserver outperforming a PHP one by 2:1... lies, damn lies and benchmarks perhaps, but PHP is really not in the same ball-park. Also, you can get strictly-typed optimised schemes. Or schemes implemented in Java (Kawa, BRL, Silk). Careful what you say when you don't know ;-)
These Java programmers of Scheme are probably trying to counteract the problems, for there are many: Java still doesn't have closures, continuations, first-class procedures...
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