[rescue] Mozilla Firefox

[Jonathan C. Patschke]

On Mon, 26 Apr 2004, Charles Shannon Hendrix wrote:

> Damn, whatever.  It wasn't a rant or at all close-minded.  I at first
> was going to label you and Dave that way, but I don't really think that.

Well, maybe it's just that you've experienced something wholly different
than I have with Java, but it sounded for all the world like you'd never
used it, because what you were saying sounded so foreign.

> It seems that writing really fast Java code means avoiding an awful lot
> of the foundation libraries, which is the major point of Java to most
> Java projects I've used.

Not at all.  But does mean using the right tool for the job.  Don't use
doubly-linked lists if you need a hashtable.  Don't use Swing's
overbearing action API just to respond to a single button click.

> Well, that's one of the problems.  Java is promoted as a whole system,
> the whole thing, and that's also how it is most often used.  Those huge
> class libraries are a big part of the draw for many shops.  It's like a
> race to see who can use the most "gee whiz" features.

Yeah, I can see that, but it's just like Perl in that aspect.  Until you
actually refer to part of the system, it doesn't enter into your code.
If you don't use any Swing components, Swing isn't sitting there sucking
up memory or cycles.

> I've always hated mixing the UI with the application, outside of the
> basic tty interface.

Absofrigginlutely.

> This is especially bad in most WWW programming.  It makes changes to
> either UI or application messy.

Oh, man, don't get me started.  I've been trying to get away from WWW
development for about 9 years now, but everyone wants to port everything
"to the web".  Remember when Microsoft was touting porting Office "to
the web" about 5 years ago?  Gah, as if EVERY long-distance data
exchange has to happen "on the web" or "in a web browser".  Never mind
the HTML -sucks- for UI design, so everyone invents their own little
proprietary kludge around it and...

*calms down*

> My favorite WWW project was one where I wrote the application in C as a
> long-running process.  The WWW code had nothing but the UI, and there
> were also command line and X interfaces to the program.

You rock. :)

There need to be more folks that take that approach, rather than loading
a few gigabytes of middleware on a web server so that they can write
stateful programs over a stateless interface using an anemic UI toolkit
in a DOCUMENT DESCRIPTION LANGUAGE.

> Even sitting on those big foundation classes?  Do you have an example of
> a well written application like that I could download and run?

All the Java stuff I've done recently is used internally by a radio
station, so I can't hand any of it out.  I wish I had something, but all
my for-fun coding happens in C, Lisp, or other things that interest me.
Java is strictly a user-management tool for me. :)

Sorry for coming off at you earlier today.  I've been dealing with more
than my share of suits at work.

-- 
Jonathan Patschke  ) "Being on the Internet is not the same as being
Elgin, TX         (   famous.  That's like calling Cheetos 'dinner'."
USA                )                                    --Metal Steve