Elliotte Rusty Harold's take on Java

[Jari-Matti Mäkelä]

Nick Sabalausky wrote:

> "Justin Johansson" <procode at adam-dott-com.au> wrote in message
> news:h8ruu1$1qpn$1 at digitalmars.com...
>> Being somewhat of a fan of Elliotte Rusty Harold, I drop in for a coffee
>> &
>> read at his cafes from time to time.  I think D people will enjoy this
>> December 2008 article with amusement so may I please share it with you.
>> Some of the comments aren't too bad either.
>>
>> http://cafe.elharo.com/programming/java-is-dead-long-live-python/
>>
>> Here an excerpt:
>>
>> "Java by contrast, is dead. It has at least as much brain damage and
>> misdesign as Python 2.x did, probably more; yet Sun has resisted tooth
>> and nail all efforts to fix the known problems. Instead they keep
>> applying ever more lipstick to this pig without ever cleaning off all the
>> filth and mud it�s been rolling in for the last 12 years. They keep
>> applying more perfume when what it really needs is a bath."
>>
>> Enjoy the read!
>>
> 
> What he was saying in that article sounded good...right up until he
> implied that all primitives should always endure the bloat of always being
> full objects.
> 
> It really bugs me though that it's taken the industry until the last few
> years to *FINALLY* start noticing that Emperor Java is missing it's
> clothes.

There are many things that prevent Python from replacing Java, even though 
Python 3 might look a bit cleaner. Closures are nice and so is a purer 
object system, but Python (at least by default) doesn't have an integrated 
static checker for syntax and semantics, i.e. a compiler. I can't imagine 
how anyone would want to port their 1 MLOC project to python since the 
existing compiler can even prove that the code is free from many kinds of 
errors.

I just looked at open job positions here and most companies are still using 
php, java, c#, and asp for their web development. Considering that Java has 
a very rich library ecosystem, there aren't that many alternatives available 
in many cases.