[rescue] Sun memo regarding Java

[Dave McGuire]

On Tuesday, February 11, 2003, at 01:02 AM, Joshua D. Boyd wrote:
>>    Eh??  You just...*write* it.  You want a button?  A line of code.
>> You want a file chooser widget?  A dozen lines of code.  You want an
>> error dialog box with a stop-sign icon?  Three lines of code.
>
> Oh.  You get all that by paring GTK (not to be confused with the whole
> GNOME thing) with C.  Or, wxwindows for that matter.

   Sure...that's one of the great things about computer technology: 
there's always fifty different ways to accomplish the same thing.

> I thought people would be refering to things like the built in object
> serializer, the ability to query an object for it's methods, then call
> them based on what it says it can do rather than one you knew the 
> object
> could do at compile time (I haven't tested this, but I'm told it's
> there), not to mention built in threads, built in lexical parser, or 
> any
> of the other thousand and one things that java comes with, some of 
> which
> can easily be done in C++ by adding a library, and others which are
> extremely difficult to do in the easy manner java does it (serializing
> objects and message passing come to mind).  Mind you, except for the
> threads, lexical parser, and the smallest test of serializing, I've 
> used
> none of these features, and wouldn't know how to use them off the top 
> of
> my head.

   The threading is very useful, but as for the other stuff...no thanks, 
some of us have applications to write.  It's all nice to read about, 
but in practice, where has fluff like that been used effectively?  I'll 
bet it's been used in some of that bloated IBM eWhatever stuff that 
gives Jon so much heartburn.  For some programmers, there's an 
inexplicable motivation to do things in the most complex way possible.  
I think it has something to do with people wanting to show off how 
clever they are or something.  But in the end, it has to work, and it 
has to work well...that's what a lot of these kiddiez writing bad code 
lose sight of.

   You mentioned above, surely in jest, about the "thousand and one 
things that Java comes with".  In actuality, the Java 1.4 platform 
comes with more than four times that many classes. ;)

        -Dave

--
Dave McGuire             "I've grown hair again, just
St. Petersburg, FL           for the occasion."       -Doc Shipley