On 27/10/2013 7:16 PM, Don Higgins wrote:
I started to learn J2SE java when I left Micro Focus in 2004. It is a very powerful language once you get to know the working set of library classes such as BigInteger and BigDecimal which I used to code emulation for all 9 HFP, BFP, and DFP floating point formats. There is an unfinished version of zcobol included along with a lot of working sample COBOL programs. The zcobol compiler which generates MLC source assembler with data labels includes support for all 9 floating point types.
I would rather code Scala. It's a great language which can utilise the entire Java runtime but is less verbose, more powerful and supports the functional programming paradigm in a natural way. Multi-threaded programming in Scala is simple and fast compared to Java. I still code C++ and while I appreciate Java is an evolutionary step forward it's not that great when compared to what's out there now.
One of the big challenges with open source software is the need for ongoing development and support. When I was director of IT for Florida Power for many years, I was perfectly willing to pay IBM, Oracle, and other software vendors for software that may not have been perfect but they did offer continued development improvements and support.
Good point. What tends to happen with open source is that once it gets popular it eventually becomes mainstream and enterprises start to use it. Once that happens it's a business and you can take your pick of vendors who are willing to support it. And sometimes the source becomes less open, nginx is case in point.
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