I find it highly amusing that the C++ crowd has managed to say "yes" to closures while the Java community is still debating. Of course, like the rest of C++, the syntax is on the baroque side...

Technorati Tags: C , Java, Closures

The Java world loves baroqueness. How else to explain this, which I had to read three times before admitting to myself that it still didn't make any sense.

Meanwhile, there's this really cool Seaside thing that will get you building your web applications really, really fast....

Mark Miller riffs off some comments Joshua Bloch has made about the the growing complexity of Java, and cloncludes that they made a basic error early on: by keeping the language "simple" - no closures, no real meta system, etc - they've actually made any growth that comes (generics) a nightmare of complexity:

I think there is a fundamental contradiction in goals between what Bloch says he prefers about Java, and the growing problems of computing. He says that adding features to a language increases its complexity, and he makes a good case for that. Yet, how is Java going to solve new problems in the future? His answer is to add more features to the language. Granted they're focused, and not open-ended to allow further expansion, but they're still feature additions all the same. As is illustrated by Squeak, library-defined structures would actually help reduce the number of features in the language. Even though Squeak can do more things concisely than Java can, the feature set of the language is very small. As a point of comparison, Lisp's language feature set is even smaller, yet it's more capable of handling complex problems than Java. They accomplish this by taking what Java does as a built-in feature, and use message-passing (Squeak), closures (Squeak, Lisp, others), an extensive meta system (Squeak, Lisp, others), named functions (Lisp, Scheme), and macros (Lisp) instead.

Smalltalk has a tiny "feature set", but immense power - any decent sized application starts to resemble a DSL over time, because that power is reserved to the developer. That simply doesn't happen in Java; instead, a decent sized application just grows warts.

Read the whole thing, because Mark makes a number of points worth thinking about.

Technorati Tags: smalltalk, dynamic language, development

The fact that Java is no longer the "It" language has been apparent for quite some time, and now even the tech media (InfoWorld) have figured it out:

Java, the oldest new programming language around, is falling out of favor with developers. When it comes to developing the increasingly common rich Internet applications, Java is losing ground to Ruby on Rails, PHP, AJAX and other cool new languages. And there are even reports that Microsoft’s .Net, of all things, is pushing Java out of the enterprise. Makes you wonder whether Sun was smart to change its stock-ticker code to JAVA last summer.

That move was curious for many reasons. In any event, now that the pointy haired crowd can see printed evidence of the passing of the torch, maybe we can go back to an open minded approach in the big IT shops.

You can see the same article in German here.

Technorati Tags: software development

Blaine Buxton explains why Groovy is slow on the JVM: it has nothing to do with the language, and everything to do with the environment:

It's not that the above posts are bad. I think they are wonderful. It gives something that the Groovy guys can use to make their product better. And that's good for all of us wanting to be dynamic in a static world. But, those numbers will also be used to prove why you shouldn't use dynamic languages. And that's sad. It's all come full circle. I hope I am wrong, but I doubt it. The numbers are not bad because dynamic languages are slow, but because trying to get them run on an architecture not built with them in mind.

Technorati Tags: dynamic languages, JVM

Phillip Greenspun explains that Java is fading from cool to passé:

In September 2003, I innocently posted Java is the SUV of programming languages? based on the fact that students in 6.171 who’d chosen to use Java were incapable of getting anything done. It created quite a stir in the comments and on Slashdot. This semester is the first time that we’ve taught 6.171 since then. Despite the fact that all the students are expert Java programmers, having used Java to build a big project in 6.170, none have chosen to use Java this semester. It is all Ruby on Rails, Microsoft .NET (C#), and a touch of Python.

Meanwhile, the Enterprisey folks - who are always years behind the curve - still think it's the end all, be all :)

Technorati Tags: web, development

Seems that people are finally starting to notice that corporately funded OSS development isn't all about being altruistic:

IBM founded the Eclipse Consortium in late 2001 and later spun it out as an independent entity known as the Eclipse Foundation in 2004. And despite the organization being a broad-based entity made up of more than 115 members, IBM employees have continued to make up the lion's share of the organization's developers on the core platform initiative.

Indeed, as some in the industry have knocked Sun Microsystems for its heavy representation and influence over the JCP (Java Community Process), others have criticized Eclipse as being too IBM-centric.

Mike Milinkovich, executive director of Eclipse, in an interview with eWEEK, said he has moved to eliminate this.

However, some observers as well as Eclipse members expressed concern about how the foundation might manage its transition away from being so IBM-heavy.

One source said he is concerned that while IBM is moving to take some of its staff off the Eclipse Platform Project, the foundation is asking strategic developers to add bodies of their own to the project--bodies that take away from development on other projects.

And a source who requested anonymity joked that, in perhaps the most cynical view of the situation, one might assume "IBM used Eclipse to run its competitors out of the market and now it's on to the next thing."

Wow, you think? I'm not opposed to open source, mind you - I ship open source software myself. I'm just skeptical about the angelic intentions of vendors in certain circumstances. Say Microsoft had open sourced IE back in 1997 instead of just making it free - how many people would have viewed that as an act of unconstrained goodness?

Via Scoble comes Schadenfreude for a Smalltalker:

Markoff: “And what are you thinking about Flash and Java?”

Jobs: “Java’s not worth building in. Nobody uses Java anymore. It’s this big heavyweight ball and chain.”

Interesting to hear Schwartz’ side of the story -- I ask him what his pitch to Steve Jobs is to get Java on the iPhone. He claims that Java is being downloaded 20 million times a month and is on about a billion cell phones with tons of apps. Claims Java is one of the most recognized brands in the world.

Yes, I can take pleasure in watching Sun get dissed that way :)