According to Sun's web site, "The most important Java technology release in years includes new Java language updates, monitoring and management support, and a focus on rich clients for the desktop." According to me, the whole Java edifice is getting increasingly creaky, and preparing to collapse under its own weight. The new generics syntax a perfect example. While I think generics in general are a very good idea, the Java 1.5 implementation makes far too many compromises with backwards compatibility. For instance, potentially very inefficient boxing and unboxing is require to support primitive data types. Furthermore, the generic collections aren't actually statically typed. It is possible to store a Frame in a List<>String without the compiler objecting. Most of the time, everything works, but it's very kludgy and not at all clean. And this is just one of many examples.

It is increasingly obvious that Java is heading down the same road C++ travelled. Unless Sun is willing to throw off the chains of backwards compatibility, someone else will. I don;t know who that someone else is, but they will replace Java just as effectively as Java replaced C++. It might be just possible to maintain binary compatibility with most existing Java code, but source compatibility should be abandoned.

Elliotte Rusty Harold

Andres Rodriguez wrote:
>
> According to Sun's web site, "The most important Java technology release in
> years includes new Java language updates, monitoring and management support,
> and a focus on rich clients for the desktop." According to me, the whole
> Java edifice is getting increasingly creaky, and preparing to collapse under
> its own weight.

Java has always been creaky.  Ask Pete Becker about trying to create the Java standard lib sometime ;)

> It is increasingly obvious that Java is heading down the same road C++
> travelled. Unless Sun is willing to throw off the chains of backwards
> compatibility, someone else will. I don;t know who that someone else is, but
> they will replace Java just as effectively as Java replaced C++.

Java hasn't replaced C++, it has remained a niche language.  And I personally hope that no one considers D a "Java killer" because that would be selling it short.  That isn't to say that I think there aren't any problems with C++, but it remains the most popular language in use today by quite a good margin.


Sean

I thought Visual Basic was the most popular language.  Perhaps that has
changed over the past 5 years?  I definetly know that throughout the mid to
late 90's, there were at least twice as many classifieds for VB programmers
than C/C++ developers  (at least here in the Seattle area.)
-mj


"Sean Kelly" <sean@ffwd.cx> wrote in message news:c0dr4q$8pl$1@digitaldaemon.com...
> Andres Rodriguez wrote:
<snip>
>
> Java hasn't replaced C++, it has remained a niche language.  And I personally hope that no one considers D a "Java killer" because that would be selling it short.  That isn't to say that I think there aren't any problems with C++, but it remains the most popular language in use today by quite a good margin.
>
>
> Sean
>

"Andres Rodriguez" <rodriguez@ai.sri.com> wrote in message news:c0dih4$2qm1$1@digitaldaemon.com...
> According to Sun's web site, "The most important Java technology release
in
> years includes new Java language updates, monitoring and management
support,
> and a focus on rich clients for the desktop." According to me, the whole Java edifice is getting increasingly creaky, and preparing to collapse
under
> its own weight. The new generics syntax a perfect example. While I think generics in general are a very good idea, the Java 1.5 implementation
makes
> far too many compromises with backwards compatibility. For instance, potentially very inefficient boxing and unboxing is require to support primitive data types. Furthermore, the generic collections aren't actually statically typed. It is possible to store a Frame in a List<>String
without
> the compiler objecting. Most of the time, everything works, but it's very kludgy and not at all clean. And this is just one of many examples.
>
> It is increasingly obvious that Java is heading down the same road C++ travelled. Unless Sun is willing to throw off the chains of backwards compatibility, someone else will. I don;t know who that someone else is,
but
> they will replace Java just as effectively as Java replaced C++.

So when did that happen, eh?

What a joke.

Do you expect us to take the rest your post seriously?

> It might be
> just possible to maintain binary compatibility with most existing Java
code,
> but source compatibility should be abandoned.
>
> Elliotte Rusty Harold
>
>
>