Re: OT: Politics of Java
Eric G. Miller wrote: On Sat, Dec 14, 2002 at 08:46:43PM -0800, Craig Dickson wrote: Yes, but the question is, how usable is it in practice? [snip] People use tasks in Ada on a regular basis. So, it must be usable, neigh? By the same reasoning, concurrency support in C and C++ must be really great, because there are lots of multithreaded programs written in those languages. I've written many myself. Yet, in fact, there is no concurrency support at all in those languages. 3 * a call on a protected subprogram of a protected object, providing exclusive read-write access, or concurrent read-only access to shared data; What makes a subprogram protected? Is this a keyword or something that the programmer has to put in the right place, like Java's synchronized? 8 In addition, tasks can communicate indirectly by reading and updating (unprotected) shared variables, presuming the access is properly synchronized through some other kind of task interaction. This sounds like thread synchronization is the programmer's problem, at least for the case of unprotected variables. This all sounds considerably more portable than C threading (which is dependent either on calling OS services directly, or using a third-party library that may not be available on all platforms, or may have licensing issues), but not necessarily all that much better. The crucial point, to me, is that for at least the most common kinds of thread communication and data sharing, it should not be necessary for the programmer to remember to do anything extra (like mark functions or variables with a special thread-safety keyword). Erlang meets this requirement in spades; I don't know of another language that does. Craig msg19236/pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: OT: Politics of Java
On Sun, Dec 15, 2002 at 09:09:48AM -0800, Craig Dickson wrote: Eric G. Miller wrote: On Sat, Dec 14, 2002 at 08:46:43PM -0800, Craig Dickson wrote: Yes, but the question is, how usable is it in practice? [snip] People use tasks in Ada on a regular basis. So, it must be usable, neigh? By the same reasoning, concurrency support in C and C++ must be really great, because there are lots of multithreaded programs written in those languages. I've written many myself. Yet, in fact, there is no concurrency support at all in those languages. Yes, it isn't much of an argument for. As I inidicated originally, I just was pointing out the capability but don't have enough experience to argue the merits of one approach vs. another. I've looked at what is involved for C to do threading vs. Ada, and the Ada approach is at least superficially much cleaner (as it is part of the language design). Also, the tasking mechanism is supposed to be available even when the underlying OS doesn't have direct support (say DOS). It is up to the compiler/run-time to handle the platform details... 3 * a call on a protected subprogram of a protected object, providing exclusive read-write access, or concurrent read-only access to shared data; What makes a subprogram protected? Is this a keyword or something that the programmer has to put in the right place, like Java's synchronized? I don't know Java, but protected is a keyword. But, you don't just stick it anywhere anymore than you would stick class wherever. 8 In addition, tasks can communicate indirectly by reading and updating (unprotected) shared variables, presuming the access is properly synchronized through some other kind of task interaction. This sounds like thread synchronization is the programmer's problem, at least for the case of unprotected variables. AFAIK, yes. This all sounds considerably more portable than C threading (which is dependent either on calling OS services directly, or using a third-party library that may not be available on all platforms, or may have licensing issues), but not necessarily all that much better. The crucial point, to me, is that for at least the most common kinds of thread communication and data sharing, it should not be necessary for the programmer to remember to do anything extra (like mark functions or variables with a special thread-safety keyword). Erlang meets this requirement in spades; I don't know of another language that does. Ada is really fairly low-level like C or C++. I have not investigated Eiffel much, but people seem to ooze affection when talking about it. So, I'd be interested to see if/how it approaches the matter. Anyway, different languages meet different needs and none will probably ever be a magic bullet. -- ...the plural of anecdote is [not?] data. - attrib. to George Stigler -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: OT: Politics of Java
On Fri, Dec 13, 2002 at 01:50:06PM -0800, Craig Dickson wrote: Eric G. Miller wrote: Ada tasks provide concurrency. I'm not enough of a language expert to discuss the merits, but folks seem to use them... I'm not an Ada expert either, but the fact that people use it isn't much of an argument. People do multi-threaded programming in C, too, and ANSI C has _no_ concurrency support whatsoever. You have to use OS services directly, or a non-standard library, to create threads, to serialize access to shared data, etc. Just coming off a concurrent systems course at my Uni: Ada was created for this sort of thing; i.e. it has built in support for concurrency, rendezvouses (is that a plural already), monitors, etc, etc at the language level. -rob msg19185/pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: OT: Politics of Java
Rob Weir wrote: Just coming off a concurrent systems course at my Uni: Ada was created for this sort of thing; i.e. it has built in support for concurrency, rendezvouses (is that a plural already), monitors, etc, etc at the language level. Yes, but the question is, how usable is it in practice? Java, Erlang, Concurrent Clean, and other languages also have built-in concurrency support. I'm not familiar with Clean's approach, and I dislike Java's (which basically amounts to making the programmer do all the work); Erlang's is quite nice. Erlang is basically designed around the idea of parallel, distributed tasks, each of them implemented internally in a more or less pure functional model, communicating by means of asynchronous messages that can contain whatever data you want to send. This is not a bag on the side like Java's synchronized keyword; it's fundamental to the basic design of the language, and it's really nice. I have never learned Ada, partly because I've never needed to and partially because it's never attracted my interest, in part due to its reputation as the PL/I of the '80s (translation: a vastly overcomplex, do-everything-but-do-nothing-well language... hmm... come to think of it, that sounds a lot like C++). So if you're familiar enough with Ada's concurrency model to describe it for us here, please do. Craig msg19192/pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: OT: Politics of Java
On Sat, Dec 14, 2002 at 08:46:43PM -0800, Craig Dickson wrote: Yes, but the question is, how usable is it in practice? [snip] People use tasks in Ada on a regular basis. So, it must be usable, neigh? I have never learned Ada, partly because I've never needed to and partially because it's never attracted my interest, in part due to its reputation as the PL/I of the '80s (translation: a vastly overcomplex, I've been recently attracted to Ada due to its ability to catch many more errors at compile time than C (meaning, less bug hunting). I was shocked when I first started using it how many things the compiler would complain about. One tricky bit is the visibility rules, esp. in relationship to operators. Anyway, I think it is much maligned simply as a reaction to its origin w/ the US DOD or because of its Pascal'ish syntax. From chapter 9 of the Ada95 Reference Manual w/ Tech. Corrigendum 1: (http://www.adaic.com/standards/95lrm/html/RM-TTL.html) Section 9: Tasks and Synchronization 1 The execution of an Ada program consists of the execution of one or more tasks. Each task represents a separate thread of control that proceeds independently and concurrently between the points where it interacts with other tasks. The various forms of task interaction are described in this section, and include: 2 * the activation and termination of a task; 3 * a call on a protected subprogram of a protected object, providing exclusive read-write access, or concurrent read-only access to shared data; 4 * a call on an entry, either of another task, allowing for synchronous communication with that task, or of a protected object, allowing for asynchronous communication with one or more other tasks using that same protected object; 5 * a timed operation, including a simple delay statement, a timed entry call or accept, or a timed asynchronous select statement (see next item); 6 * an asynchronous transfer of control as part of an asynchronous select statement, where a task stops what it is doing and begins execution at a different point in response to the completion of an entry call or the expiration of a delay; 7 * an abort statement, allowing one task to cause the termination of another task. 8 In addition, tasks can communicate indirectly by reading and updating (unprotected) shared variables, presuming the access is properly synchronized through some other kind of task interaction. Static Semantics 9 The properties of a task are defined by a corresponding task declaration and task_body, which together define a program unit called a task unit. Dynamic Semantics 10 Over time, tasks proceed through various states. A task is initially inactive; upon activation, and prior to its termination it is either blocked (as part of some task interaction) or ready to run. While ready, a task competes for the available execution resources that it requires to run. NOTES 11 1 Concurrent task execution may be implemented on multicomputers, multiprocessors, or with interleaved execution on a single physical processor. On the other hand, whenever an implementation can determine that the required semantic effects can be achieved when parts of the execution of a given task are performed by different physical processors acting in parallel, it may choose to perform them in this way. -- ...the plural of anecdote is [not?] data. - attrib. to George Stigler -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: OT: Politics of Java
On Thu, Dec 12, 2002 at 10:11:26PM -0800, Craig Dickson wrote: [snip] It really is a cool language; the only one I know of with a really usable concurrency model. (C/C++ have no concurrency model; Java's requires programmers to stick the synchronized keyword in all the right places; Haskell's use of lazy evaluation to model coroutines is cute, but not at all the same thing, just as their two-line qsort demo isn't really a qsort if you look at it closely; etc.) Ada tasks provide concurrency. I'm not enough of a language expert to discuss the merits, but folks seem to use them... And that quicksort looked kinda like a merge sort to me ;-) -- ...the plural of anecdote is [not?] data. - attrib. to George Stigler -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: OT: Politics of Java
Eric G. Miller wrote: Ada tasks provide concurrency. I'm not enough of a language expert to discuss the merits, but folks seem to use them... I'm not an Ada expert either, but the fact that people use it isn't much of an argument. People do multi-threaded programming in C, too, and ANSI C has _no_ concurrency support whatsoever. You have to use OS services directly, or a non-standard library, to create threads, to serialize access to shared data, etc. Craig msg19017/pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: OT: Politics of Java
David Z Maze declaimed: One of these days I'll get around to doing a reasonable-sized project in Haskell, though: it has an incredible type system and seems to do the right thing around classes, though this is only so meaningful in a purely functional language. Saying well, I wrote about half of a compiler in Haskell certainly gets interesting reactions from the right sort of people... :-) Heh, me too! (Although likely on a more modest scale) I've just finished a Programming Languages course where we used Haskell to write a lambda calculus evaluator. Writing the input expressions as structures (Lambda x (Var y)) was so irritating that I wrote a parser to field string input (/x.y). It works nicely, although only the interpreter's built-in limits keep it from blowing up on expressions that expand infinitely. For those who've never seen this language, here's the quicksort algorithm in 2 lines: qsort([])= [] qsort((a:b)) = qsort([x | x-b, xa])++[a]++qsort([y| y-b, ya]) Not sure about licensing, but it's small, free, and available for *nix, MacOS, and Wintel. http://haskell.org -- Paul Mackinney [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: OT: Politics of Java
Paul Mackinney wrote: Heh, me too! (Although likely on a more modest scale) I've just finished a Programming Languages course where we used Haskell to write a lambda calculus evaluator. Writing the input expressions as structures (Lambda x (Var y)) was so irritating that I wrote a parser to field string input (/x.y). It works nicely, although only the interpreter's built-in limits keep it from blowing up on expressions that expand infinitely. Haskell is nice for what it is, but I wouldn't really call it a practical language, simply because, last time I checked, performance wasn't very good, and it didn't have much in the way of libraries. But it is very elegant syntactically. Erlang (http://www.erlang.org) is, I think, a better choice for real work. It is also a functional language, but with built-in concurrency using asynchronous messages to pass data between processes which may live on the same machine or on other machines reachable via a network. Ericsson has used it in a number of significant projects, including a high-performnance ATM router the model number of which I no longer recall. Not sure about licensing, but it's small, free, and available for *nix, MacOS, and Wintel. http://haskell.org Erlang is not only free software, but it's already packaged for Debian (though I think it's been orphaned; it's in stable, but no longer in testing or unstable). Craig msg18818/pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: OT: Politics of Java
Craig Dickson wrote: Erlang is not only free software, but it's already packaged for Debian (though I think it's been orphaned; it's in stable, but no longer in testing or unstable). (Whacks self with ruler) My first search must have been set to stable only; on second glance, I see that there is a new Erlang maintainer, and new packages in unstable. It really is a cool language; the only one I know of with a really usable concurrency model. (C/C++ have no concurrency model; Java's requires programmers to stick the synchronized keyword in all the right places; Haskell's use of lazy evaluation to model coroutines is cute, but not at all the same thing, just as their two-line qsort demo isn't really a qsort if you look at it closely; etc.) Craig msg18820/pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: OT: Politics of Java
On Thu, Nov 21, 2002 at 07:41:19PM +, Colin Watson wrote: However, as I started to download the SDK from Sun's web site, it I'm confused. Isn't this what we have a non-free section for? We still have to be able to distribute it to put it in non-free. As I understand it, that isn't the case for newer JDKs. Blackdown has a 1.4 that will probably become available via third-party unofficial deb repositories as 1.3 is. There's a server, in .uk IIRC, where you can get the blackdown 1.4 beta, but its sid-only as it has as a dependency sid's version of glibc. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: OT: Politics of Java
On Thu, Nov 21, 2002 at 07:41:19PM +, Colin Watson wrote: On Thu, Nov 21, 2002 at 01:49:35PM -0500, Michael P. Soulier wrote: On 20/11/02 Kent West did speaketh: However, as I started to download the SDK from Sun's web site, it started bothering me more and more that Sun's license is such that it prevents Debian from including it as part of the distro. I'm not sure of I'm confused. Isn't this what we have a non-free section for? We still have to be able to distribute it to put it in non-free. As I understand it, that isn't the case for newer JDKs. There are quite many free JVMs out there. If Java would be standard in Debian, one of them could be used. As I understand it, the JDK has to be downloaded from the site because Sun wants to keep the tally of the downloaders, and sort of keeping track of you if you are downloading from the JDC. Oki -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: OT: Politics of Java
On Thu, 2002-11-21 at 00:18, Kirk Strauser wrote: At 2002-11-21T05:06:49Z, Kent West [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I'm just curious; do other folks (particularly real developers, not just tinkerer-wanna-be's like myself) have a similar problem with Java, or have I just been channeling too much RMS lately? You're not alone. I've never felt good about Java for the same reason that I don't like dealing with proprietary software: if the vendor decides to EOL the software, I'm stuck with a glob of quickly-obsoleting mess. Sun may very well develop and maintain Java for decades to come, but they could also drop the project tomorrow and start reigning in usage of their trademark. It probably won't happen, but it *could*, and that kind of bothers me. I wonder if they (Sun) really do see themselves as a bulwark against The Evil Empire, like Gondor warring against Mordor? -- ++ | Ron Johnson, Jr. mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] | | Jefferson, LA USA http://members.cox.net/ron.l.johnson | || | they love our milk and honey, but preach about another| | way of living| |Merle Haggard, The Fighting Side Of Me| ++ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: OT: Politics of Java
On Thursday 21 November 2002 00:12, Ron Johnson wrote: On Thu, 2002-11-21 at 00:18, Kirk Strauser wrote: At 2002-11-21T05:06:49Z, Kent West [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I'm just curious; do other folks (particularly real developers, not just tinkerer-wanna-be's like myself) have a similar problem with Java, or have I just been channeling too much RMS lately? You're not alone. I've never felt good about Java for the same reason that I don't like dealing with proprietary software: if the vendor decides to EOL the software, I'm stuck with a glob of quickly-obsoleting mess. Sun may very well develop and maintain Java for decades to come, but they could also drop the project tomorrow and start reigning in usage of their trademark. It probably won't happen, but it *could*, and that kind of bothers me. I wonder if they (Sun) really do see themselves as a bulwark against The Evil Empire, like Gondor warring against Mordor? much more like orks v. goblins. or the European countries during the colonial era. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: OT: Politics of Java
On Wed, Nov 20, 2002 at 11:34:16PM -0600, Michael Kahle wrote: Is the standard, controlled entirely by Sun? It's by the JCP. Anyone may join the JCP; I don't think that Java is controlled mainly by Sun. I'm not sure how mature this is, but if your interested in Java programming without the politics. http://gcc.gnu.org/java/ The above is the collection of the tools (for developing Java programs). I believe that _implementing_ Java is open for anyone. What Sun wants is just that if your products want to be called Java, then comply to what JCP says on Java (the spec. I mean). I think it's not only on the Java language, but also on the bytecodes; you have to follow certain standards. Oki -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: OT: Politics of Java
On Wed, Nov 20, 2002 at 10:04:30PM -0800, Sean 'Shaleh' Perry wrote: | On Wednesday 20 November 2002 21:06, Kent West wrote: | | I'm just curious; do other folks (particularly real developers, not just | tinkerer-wanna-be's like myself) have a similar problem with Java, or | have I just been channeling too much RMS lately? I would avoid java if I wasn't require to use it in class and at work. Since I am required, use this apt sources line and install the 'j2sdk1.4' package. deb ftp://ftp.tux.org/pub/java/debian/ sid main non-free | If you are looking for an easy, fun, quick to learn language give Python a | try. I agree here. In fact, python is older, more cross-platform and more OO than java is. All it lacks is the marketing budget of Sun. -D -- A perverse man stirs up dissension, and a gossip separates close friends. Proverbs 16:28 http://dman.ddts.net/~dman/ msg14413/pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: OT: Politics of Java
Craig == Craig Dickson [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Craig Michael Kahle wrote: Does the fact that they control the standard prohibit others from implementing the language with other standards if they see fit? Forking the project so to speak? Craig It's called C#. So yes, it is possible, but you can't call the Craig resulting language Java without Sun's permission, which you're Craig unlikely to get if you deviate from their standards. Or the Microsoft(R) Virtual Machine, Microsoft(R)'s implementation of Java(TM). Microsoft(R) originally called it a Java(TM) VM, but they took certain liberties with it, and Sun(TM) forced them to stop calling it Java(TM). -- Hubert Chan [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://www.uhoreg.ca/ PGP/GnuPG key: 1024D/124B61FA Fingerprint: 96C5 012F 5F74 A5F7 1FF7 5291 AF29 C719 124B 61FA Key available at wwwkeys.pgp.net. Encrypted e-mail preferred. msg14417/pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: OT: Politics of Java
Kent West wrote:
Shaleh was the one to plug python first. But what dman says here gets my
attention. Do others concur that python is more cross-platform and more
OO than java?
It probably is supported on more platforms, since it's open source. More
OO... hmm. Possibly. Of course, this opens up the whole quagmire of what
it means to be OO. I personally think that OO languages that depend on
inheritance to determine whether a given method is available in an
object are too restrictive. I prefer the Smalltalk or OCAML style of OO,
where if two classes both have a method foo(int), then you can pass either
one to a function such as the following:
f(x) { x.foo(3); }
Java and C++ won't let you do that unless the two classes are related by
inheritance (either one from the other, or both from a common base class
or interface that defines the foo(int) method). Smalltalk and OCAML
don't care about that; if the method exists, you're fine. You might
think that would require runtime checking, but it's usually possible to
verify it at compile time, and modern compilers will do so.
What are the disadvantages with python as opposed to java?
Performance, possibly? I'm not sure how fast python is these days.
Java's JIT compilation helps a lot, and gcc 3.x supports compiling Java
directly to native code (not sure how usable it is yet).
Why would someone pick java over python then? Is it only because of
marketing, as dman says?
Primarily, yes.
Craig
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Re: OT: Politics of Java
At 2002-11-21T17:42:27Z, Kent West [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Shaleh was the one to plug python first. But what dman says here gets my attention. Do others concur that python is more cross-platform and more OO than java? Both are available for pretty much every major platform. Python is available on more non-mainstream systems: http://java.sun.com/cgi-bin/java-ports.cgi http://www.python.org/download/ http://www.python.org/download/download_other.html Of interest, Perl and Python are moving toward a common virtual machine (Parrot), although it may take a while. I'd be a full-time Python programmer if I knew I could transparently access my Perl codebase. What are the disadvantages with python as opposed to java? It seems like there should be *something*, but I can't think of a single drawback except that there are probably more development environments for Java than Python. I use Emacs, so both languages are pretty equally easy for me to use, but Windows users may not be in the same boat. Why would someone pick java over python then? Is it only because of marketing, as dman says? Actually, since you mention it, that's the only reason I can think of. -- Kirk Strauser In Googlis non est, ergo non est. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: OT: Politics of Java
-Original Message- From: Kent West [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, November 21, 2002 9:42 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: OT: Politics of Java Derrick 'dman' Hudson wrote: On Wed, Nov 20, 2002 at 10:04:30PM -0800, Sean 'Shaleh' Perry wrote: | On Wednesday 20 November 2002 21:06, Kent West wrote: | | I'm just curious; do other folks (particularly real developers, not just | tinkerer-wanna-be's like myself) have a similar problem with Java, or | have I just been channeling too much RMS lately? I would avoid java if I wasn't require to use it in class and at work. Since I am required, use this apt sources line and install the 'j2sdk1.4' package. deb ftp://ftp.tux.org/pub/java/debian/ sid main non-free | If you are looking for an easy, fun, quick to learn language give Python a | try. I agree here. In fact, python is older, more cross-platform and more OO than java is. All it lacks is the marketing budget of Sun. -D Shaleh was the one to plug python first. But what dman says here gets my attention. Do others concur that python is more cross-platform and more OO than java? What are the disadvantages with python as opposed to java? Why would someone pick java over python then? Is it only because of marketing, as dman says? Kent We're really really off topic here. Personally, I like Java better but this is personal preference. Java: - Owned by sun + Well spec'd from the beginning - Huge. standard libraries have lots of useless crap o Unicode-16 is std string representation. Good for i18n, bad for performance. + Well integrated thread and lock support. + Latest VMs are very fast + Real garbage collector o C syntax o Some non-object types. Helpful for performance. Python: + Free. Very free. - Reference counting collector. o Simple syntax. Easy to learn but limits sophisticated stuff. + 8 bit strings by default - VM is bytecode only, relatively slow + Many libraries available but not part of core. Just get what you need. - Object attributes live in hashes. Very dynamic but very slow. o Everything is an object. Helpful for development. Both languages are still evolving rapidly and both are pretty nice. I would never say either is better in general. It depends on what you want to do. Either language would make a good choice for a learning language as neither demands you learn bad habits to get work done. And no one says you have to learn just one language. I would say if you are sitting at the end of a slow pipe, you should download python. You could be waiting for hours before you get Java downloaded. As a professional, the choice of language is often made before I get hired so I have to be flexible and rather agnostic. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: OT: Politics of Java
On 20/11/02 Kent West did speaketh: However, as I started to download the SDK from Sun's web site, it started bothering me more and more that Sun's license is such that it prevents Debian from including it as part of the distro. I'm not sure of I'm confused. Isn't this what we have a non-free section for? Mike -- Michael P. Soulier [EMAIL PROTECTED], GnuPG pub key: 5BC8BE08 ...the word HACK is used as a verb to indicate a massive amount of nerd-like effort. -Harley Hahn, A Student's Guide to Unix HTML Email Considered Harmful: http://expita.com/nomime.html msg14433/pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: OT: Politics of Java
On Thursday 21 November 2002 10:42 am, Kent West wrote: Derrick 'dman' Hudson wrote: On Wed, Nov 20, 2002 at 10:04:30PM -0800, Sean 'Shaleh' Perry wrote: | On Wednesday 20 November 2002 21:06, Kent West wrote: | I'm just curious; do other folks (particularly real developers, | not just tinkerer-wanna-be's like myself) have a similar problem | with Java, or have I just been channeling too much RMS lately? I would avoid java if I wasn't require to use it in class and at work. Since I am required, use this apt sources line and install the 'j2sdk1.4' package. deb ftp://ftp.tux.org/pub/java/debian/ sid main non-free | If you are looking for an easy, fun, quick to learn language give | Python a try. I agree here. In fact, python is older, more cross-platform and more OO than java is. All it lacks is the marketing budget of Sun. -D Shaleh was the one to plug python first. But what dman says here gets my attention. Do others concur that python is more cross-platform and more OO than java? What are the disadvantages with python as opposed to java? Why would someone pick java over python then? Is it only because of marketing, as dman says? Kent I write c++ code for my job and don't have any experience with either java or python (other than nominally playing around with python). Python is developed in c, so if an architecture has a compliant c compiler, more than likely, you can get the python interpreter compiled and run your python scripts. Porting java to a new architecture is probably harder as evidence by the lack of willing partners to get the blackdown port of the latest (1.4??) running on the powerpc chip. Reasons for choosing one over the other: 1. Performance 2. Development enviroment -- toolchain support. 3. Availability of qualified developers that know the language -- certainly more java developers than python. 4. Notion of higher (or better) cross-platform support for the big 3 in OSes (Windows, UNIX/Linux, MacOS(X)) -- companies actually provide the support for these enviroments as opposed to volunteers in the open source community. 5. Library support (or the availability) for the given application. 6. Size of application, how well does the language scale for large code bases. Scripting languages don't as a rule scale -- you don't write tens of thousands lines of code in a scripting language -- although I have heard that python does scale much better than tcl for example. You will always hear someone say, but . . oh I have written X number of lines of code in blah, and it was just fine. . . Is that typical?? 7. Higher ups dictating the tool for the job without understanding all of the requirements -- pros, cons of using one tool over the other. 8. Marketing hype (or lack of). I am not a language expert to know if python is more or less OO than java. This depends on your definition of OO (which even defies an absolute definition from the language gurus). I would certainly think that python would work better for gluing different applications together than java, since scripting languages do a good job in this department. I also think that python would win for rapid prototyping some code idea. It might also be more fun to develop in python because of the rapid feedback from working in an interpretative enviroment. John -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: OT: Politics of Java
On 21/11/02 Kent West did speaketh: Shaleh was the one to plug python first. But what dman says here gets my attention. Do others concur that python is more cross-platform and more OO than java? What are the disadvantages with python as opposed to java? Why would someone pick java over python then? Is it only because of marketing, as dman says? No. Python is a great language, but it is a scripting language in the same solution space as Perl. Java scales better to large projects, like C++ does, due to its strict rules and strong typing. Python _is_ a blast though. I'm the webmaster for this site http://opag.ca, and everything there is done in Python. Zope is also well worth looking at, if you buy into the whole web services rant coming from the Java and .NET backers. Mike -- Michael P. Soulier [EMAIL PROTECTED], GnuPG pub key: 5BC8BE08 ...the word HACK is used as a verb to indicate a massive amount of nerd-like effort. -Harley Hahn, A Student's Guide to Unix HTML Email Considered Harmful: http://expita.com/nomime.html msg14436/pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: OT: Politics of Java
* Oki DZ ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) [021121 01:05]: On Wed, Nov 20, 2002 at 11:34:16PM -0600, Michael Kahle wrote: Is the standard, controlled entirely by Sun? It's by the JCP. Anyone may join the JCP; I don't think that Java is controlled mainly by Sun. I'm not sure how mature this is, but if your interested in Java programming without the politics. http://gcc.gnu.org/java/ The above is the collection of the tools (for developing Java programs). I believe that _implementing_ Java is open for anyone. What Sun wants is just that if your products want to be called Java, then comply to what JCP says on Java (the spec. I mean). I think it's not only on the Java language, but also on the bytecodes; you have to follow certain standards. This actually worked out quite nicely a few years back with Microsoft tried its embrace and extend technique with visual J++. Sun said that ain't Java, and it was good. Otherwise, there would be all this MS Java crap floating around that would only work correctly on windows, abandoning Java's cross-platform ideology. good times, Vineet -- http://www.doorstop.net/ -- As we enjoy great advantages from inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously. --Benjamin Franklin msg14448/pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: OT: Politics of Java
On Thu, Nov 21, 2002 at 01:49:35PM -0500, Michael P. Soulier wrote: On 20/11/02 Kent West did speaketh: However, as I started to download the SDK from Sun's web site, it started bothering me more and more that Sun's license is such that it prevents Debian from including it as part of the distro. I'm not sure of I'm confused. Isn't this what we have a non-free section for? We still have to be able to distribute it to put it in non-free. As I understand it, that isn't the case for newer JDKs. -- Colin Watson [[EMAIL PROTECTED]] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: OT: Politics of Java
On Thu, 2002-11-21 at 02:23, Sean 'Shaleh' Perry wrote: On Thursday 21 November 2002 00:12, Ron Johnson wrote: On Thu, 2002-11-21 at 00:18, Kirk Strauser wrote: At 2002-11-21T05:06:49Z, Kent West [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: [snip] mess. Sun may very well develop and maintain Java for decades to come, but they could also drop the project tomorrow and start reigning in usage of their trademark. It probably won't happen, but it *could*, and that kind of bothers me. I wonder if they (Sun) really do see themselves as a bulwark against The Evil Empire, like Gondor warring against Mordor? much more like orks v. goblins. or the European countries during the colonial era. You are *much* too harsh. Never forget who gave us NFS, yp and OpenOffice, and who was one of the early pioneers in bringing Unix out of academia and into the world. Certainly, that doesn't warrant comparisons with orcs and goblins. Also, I asked not how others see them, but how they see themselves. -- ++ | Ron Johnson, Jr. mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] | | Jefferson, LA USA http://members.cox.net/ron.l.johnson | || | they love our milk and honey, but preach about another| | way of living| |Merle Haggard, The Fighting Side Of Me| ++ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: OT: Politics of Java
Michael == Michael P Soulier [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Michael On 20/11/02 Kent West did speaketh: However, as I started to download the SDK from Sun's web site, it started bothering me more and more that Sun's license is such that it prevents Debian from including it as part of the distro. I'm not sure of Michael I'm confused. Isn't this what we have a non-free section Michael for? Sun's license on the JDK prohibits redistribution AFAIK. /Shyamal -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: OT: Politics of Java
Kent West [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Shaleh was the one to plug python first. But what dman says here gets my attention. Do others concur that python is more cross-platform and more OO than java? What are the disadvantages with python as opposed to java? Why would someone pick java over python then? Is it only because of marketing, as dman says? Jumping in: Java's big advantage, in my mind, is that the language has nice static checking properties. All you can really check at compile-time for Python (such as it is) is that the program is syntactically correct. This Python program: class Foo: def __init__(self): pass def bar(self): print Hi there! foo = Foo() foo.baz() passes through the compilation part fine; the actual error isn't caught until the code tries to execute foo.baz() and discovers that there's no such method. In contrast, in Java, this would be caught in the compiler, which can be a win if the error is on a seldom-executed code path following a long computation. Java's syntax is closer to C/C++, and actually close enough that you can almost tell a C++ programmer well, there's no delete, everything's inline, public/private go in front of things instead of being a label, and every object variable is really a pointer and they can go. Python is sufficiently different to panic grad students who are told that they need to create some course tools in it within the next week. (Though having gotten through the panic, it's actually not that hard.) Java is more buzzword-compliant, if you need to deal with that. Your local PHB is probably more likely to buy it was a major project in Java than it was a major project in Python. In my experience, your local (Solaris, Windows, ...) machine is more likely to have a JVM than a Python interpreter. Java has a redistributable binary form, if you're the sort that feels the need to obfuscate their source. (I think the languages that interest me more have the interesting static properties. C is pretty ugly, when you get down to it, and Java has weird artifacts and limitations. You'd like to be able to separate specification from implementation, and this is completely impossible in Java [and a pain in C++, but doable]. One of these days I'll get around to doing a reasonable-sized project in Haskell, though: it has an incredible type system and seems to do the right thing around classes, though this is only so meaningful in a purely functional language. Saying well, I wrote about half of a compiler in Haskell certainly gets interesting reactions from the right sort of people... :-) -- David Maze [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://people.debian.org/~dmaze/ Theoretical politics is interesting. Politicking should be illegal. -- Abra Mitchell -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
OT: Politics of Java
I picked up Dori Smith's Java for the World Wide Web book at the library the other day; thought I'd at least introduce myself to the basics of Java programming. I am not a programmer; just did the usual college class work in the basic languages (Pascal, Fortran, BASIC), and then a smallish app or two in C. (And of course, WordPerfect's macro language back in the day :-) However, as I started to download the SDK from Sun's web site, it started bothering me more and more that Sun's license is such that it prevents Debian from including it as part of the distro. I'm not sure of all the issues; I just know that in order to be part of Debian, it must be Free Software, and apparently Sun's SDK doesn't fit. As a result, I decided not to download the SDK, and thus to give up on learning Java. I know that I'm probably in the minority, placing philosophy above practicality, but it's just the principle of the thing. I'm not completely averse to using non-Free software, but I decided I didn't want to contribute to the use/development of non-free programming languages. I'm just curious; do other folks (particularly real developers, not just tinkerer-wanna-be's like myself) have a similar problem with Java, or have I just been channeling too much RMS lately? Thanks for any comments. Kent -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: OT: Politics of Java
Kent West wrote: I picked up Dori Smith's Java for the World Wide Web book at the library the other day; thought I'd at least introduce myself to the basics of Java programming. I am not a programmer; just did the usual college class work in the basic languages (Pascal, Fortran, BASIC), and then a smallish app or two in C. (And of course, WordPerfect's macro language back in the day :-) However, as I started to download the SDK from Sun's web site, it started bothering me more and more that Sun's license is such that it prevents Debian from including it as part of the distro. I'm not sure of all the issues; I just know that in order to be part of Debian, it must be Free Software, and apparently Sun's SDK doesn't fit. As a result, I decided not to download the SDK, and thus to give up on learning Java. I know that I'm probably in the minority, placing philosophy above practicality, but it's just the principle of the thing. I'm not completely averse to using non-Free software, but I decided I didn't want to contribute to the use/development of non-free programming languages. I'm just curious; do other folks (particularly real developers, not just tinkerer-wanna-be's like myself) have a similar problem with Java, or have I just been channeling too much RMS lately? No, you haven't been smoking too much RMS. Java is not an open standard; it is controlled entirely by Sun, for Sun's benefit. I'll leave other comments I might make about Java as a language for another day, since I don't think it's relevant to your question. Craig -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: OT: Politics of Java
Kent West writes: I'm just curious; do other folks (particularly real developers, not just tinkerer-wanna-be's like myself) have a similar problem with Java,... Yes. -- John Hasler [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dancing Horse Hill Elmwood, Wisconsin -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: OT: Politics of Java
-Original Message- From: Craig Dickson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, November 20, 2002 11:21 PM To: Debian User Subject: Re: OT: Politics of Java Craig Dickson wrote: /* snip No, you haven't been smoking too much RMS. Java is not an open standard; it is controlled entirely by Sun, for Sun's benefit. snip */ Is the standard, controlled entirely by Sun? I'm not sure how mature this is, but if your interested in Java programming without the politics. http://gcc.gnu.org/java/ Good times. Michael -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: OT: Politics of Java
Michael Kahle wrote: Is the standard, controlled entirely by Sun? I'm not sure how mature this is, but if your interested in Java programming without the politics. http://gcc.gnu.org/java/ I know there are other compilers/tools for Java than Sun's, but that doesn't change the fact that the Java name is a Sun trademark and that Sun has never submitted the language to an independent standards body. Sun, all by themselves, defines what Java is and isn't. Craig -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: OT: Politics of Java
On Wednesday 20 November 2002 21:06, Kent West wrote: I'm just curious; do other folks (particularly real developers, not just tinkerer-wanna-be's like myself) have a similar problem with Java, or have I just been channeling too much RMS lately? Thanks for any comments. Kent Many of us who were not forced to learn Java in college feel this way. If you are looking for an easy, fun, quick to learn language give Python a try. (not to spin this off into a huge alternate thread) -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: OT: Politics of Java
on Wed, 20 Nov 2002 10:04:30PM -0800, Sean 'Shaleh' Perry insinuated: On Wednesday 20 November 2002 21:06, Kent West wrote: I'm just curious; do other folks (particularly real developers, not just tinkerer-wanna-be's like myself) have a similar problem with Java, or have I just been channeling too much RMS lately? Thanks for any comments. Kent Many of us who were not forced to learn Java in college feel this way. many of us who were (== are currently being) do, too ... /nori -- .~. nori @ sccs.swarthmore.edu /V\ http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/~nori/jnl/ // \\ @ maenad.net /( )\ www.maenad.net ^`~'^ msg14324/pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: OT: Politics of Java
At 2002-11-21T05:06:49Z, Kent West [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I'm just curious; do other folks (particularly real developers, not just tinkerer-wanna-be's like myself) have a similar problem with Java, or have I just been channeling too much RMS lately? You're not alone. I've never felt good about Java for the same reason that I don't like dealing with proprietary software: if the vendor decides to EOL the software, I'm stuck with a glob of quickly-obsoleting mess. Sun may very well develop and maintain Java for decades to come, but they could also drop the project tomorrow and start reigning in usage of their trademark. It probably won't happen, but it *could*, and that kind of bothers me. -- Kirk Strauser In Googlis non est, ergo non est. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: OT: Politics of Java
Craig Dickson wrote: I know there are other compilers/tools for Java than Sun's, but that doesn't change the fact that the Java name is a Sun trademark and that Sun has never submitted the language to an independent standards body. Sun, all by themselves, defines what Java is and isn't. Craig Interesting. I am going to have to do some reading on this. Does the fact that they control the standard prohibit others from implementing the language with other standards if they see fit? Forking the project so to speak? Michael -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: OT: Politics of Java
On Wednesday 20 November 2002 22:05, Michael Kahle wrote: Interesting. I am going to have to do some reading on this. Does the fact that they control the standard prohibit others from implementing the language with other standards if they see fit? Forking the project so to speak? In theory, yes. In practice what has happened is Sun has moved faster than the people doing the white room implementation. Similar to how Wine took forever to be useful. Java is more than just a language you also have to implement and interoperate with all of the libraries. There are a couple of almost there Java implementations in the free world but there is still no replacement for Swing, Beans, etc. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: OT: Politics of Java
Michael Kahle wrote: Does the fact that they control the standard prohibit others from implementing the language with other standards if they see fit? Forking the project so to speak? It's called C#. So yes, it is possible, but you can't call the resulting language Java without Sun's permission, which you're unlikely to get if you deviate from their standards. Craig -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
