[geeks] Misuse of Java

[Dave McGuire]

On Wednesday, November 6, 2002, at 10:52 AM, Bill Bradford wrote:
> I've got a Blade 1000 with 900Mhz CPU, and Java is *still* kinda slow.

   *What* Java is slow?  I do a lot of performance testing on the Java 
app side of our product on an Ultra1/170, and except for a few aspects 
of the user interface (which we're working on, that's why I do that 
performance testing!) it's quite fast.

   One can write slow, inefficient, or otherwise bad code in any 
programming language.

   I'm starting to develop a theory here.  Ease of learning of a 
programming language may be a detriment to new programmers, because one 
can reach the point of productivity and start writing "production" code 
before actually learning a base of good (language-independent) 
programming skills.

   Two examples to illustrate the extremes:

   Java is VERY easy to learn...a new programmer can become productive 
in almost no time, building huge user interfaces and big functionality 
in weeks that would take years to build in, for example, C.  There's 
not much sweat involved...and while the new programmer *is* learning, 
they're learning the Java language...not learning good programming 
practice.

   C, on the other end of the spectrum, is generally considered to be 
very difficult to learn, in spite of its smallness and nearly 
ridiculous simplicity.  (but then, there are a lot of misconceptions 
about C; some school types even teach their students that C is a 
high-level language...morons!)

   To wit, I don't see anywhere near as much, percentage-wise, truly bad 
C code as I do truly bad Java code...and I'm not even a highly 
experienced Java programmer, so I'm likely recognizing only the most 
egregious examples of bad code.

        -Dave

--
Dave McGuire              "So you're really not gonna bite on the
St. Petersburg, FL              transvestite bait?"    -Doc Shipley