3 ms·

OK, what then is Java < 8?) The point was that if one has a proper old-school computer science (to realize the crucial importance of first class procedures and

OK, what then is Java < 8?) The point was that if one has a proper old-school computer science (to realize the crucial importance of first class procedures and the power of uniformity 20 years ago) all these modern features are coming for free, to which the code above is an illustration. But who cares. There is a whole industry which praised Java for almost two decades even without these "modern features". Any PL student of a decent school, if he is not a hypocrite, would tell you that Java is the worst thing that happened to CS since MS DOS, but who cares about PL theory or even CS? Availability bias and Cargo Cult is enough.

jerven 11y ago
Yes, and now that Java finally has these modern features: people are migrating to GO who lack many :( But then LISPs have always been shunned for bad reasons. While crazy bad languages like C,Java and PHP are picked up by the masses.
- dschiptsov 11y ago
  But there are really modern things. Julia, for example, and Scala is even a bit too modern.)
- akacase 11y ago
  Your JVM runs on all things written in C and the concurrency primitives are far more elegant in Go than in Java.
  - jerven 11y ago
    Agree and disagree. The thing I was going for is that compscience advantages don't seem to matter for language adoption. i.e. popularity does not correlate to compsci purity.
    - akacase 11y ago
      I understand; however, less is more: http://commandcenter.blogspot.com/2012/06/less-is-exponentially-more.html http://commandcenter.blogspot.com/2012/06/less-is-exponentia...
    - dschiptsov 11y ago
      Yes, there are different forces in a play. Let's name it as The Law of a Decent Runtime, and The Law of Attention to Details, and The Law of a Bazar of Ignorant.)) The Law Of a Decent Runtime is very simple - evolving a decent runtime is very costly and time-consuming. It is also related to the second law and to the inverse of the third - which is a the Law of Dictature of The Most Competent. A decent runtime cannot be produced without talent, time, financing, competence and attention to details. The examples are what came out of Xerox Parc, Bell labs, Ericsson and the best parts of academia (MIT Scheme culture, Scala, Standard ML, LLVM and Haskell, monads aside). There are also many in-house (Tensorflow) and sponsored open source porjects (LLVM, Golang, Julia, Torch, to name a few). Basically, it is about resources spent on a talent. What is important distinction - a decent runtime cannot be produced by the Bazaar of Ignorant (PHP, amateur Java code, SAP, and other "fractals of a bad design"). The Linux kernel is very special example, because it combines the law of big numbers, and all these three - it is a product of a whole planet of competent volunteers and paid developers - unlike PHP or Java ecosystem there is very high barrier to entry, thanks to The Dictature of The Most Competent .) The law of Attention To Details - is quite obvious, and related to the first. This is why most of successful projects had a passionate and competent leader who sets the standards, be it Linux kernel, Erlang, Nginx, Gambit Scheme, Python, OpenBSD, Redis, Scala, SBCL, PostgreSQL, you name it. Popularity has nothing to do with it. It is based on the principle of instant gratification (PHP, MongoDB) or Availability Bias boosted by paid content brainwashing (Java, SAP, MS) without understanding and preferably any thinking. Popularity doesn't mean quality at all, be it junkfood or PHP.
      - jdmichal 11y ago
        Your Law of a Decent Runtime reminds me exactly of the "Lisp Curse": http://www.winestockwebdesign.com/Essays/Lisp_Curse.html http://www.winestockwebdesign.com/Essays/Lisp_Curse.html
        dschiptsov 11y ago
        There is another good reading.) http://the-programmers-stone.com/the-original-talks/day-1-thinking-about-thinking/ http://the-programmers-stone.com/the-original-talks/day-1-th...
incepted 11y ago
> Any PL student of a decent school, if he is not a hypocrite, would tell you that Java is the worst thing that happened to CS since MS DOS, That's why we don't listen to students to make this kind of uninformed claims. Java has flaws, for sure, but calling it the "worst thing since MS DOS" can only come from someone who lacks perspective and experience.
- dschiptsov 11y ago
  Why, I have experience of re-instalation and restoring data from backup each time Business Objects JVM process segfaults, because there is no way keep track of state unless it shuts down property. How about this perspective?
  - incepted 11y ago
    Good for you but it doesn't make your previous statement any less of a preposterous hyperbole.
    - dschiptsov 11y ago
      Tell us, please, what language comes to one's mind instantly afer reading this chapter below? http://the-programmers-stone.com/the-original-talks/day-1-thinking-about-thinking/ http://the-programmers-stone.com/the-original-talks/day-1-th...

jerven 11y ago

Yes, and now that Java finally has these modern features: people are migrating to GO who lack many :( But then LISPs have always been shunned for bad reasons. While crazy bad languages like C,Java and PHP are picked up by the masses.

dschiptsov 11y ago
But there are really modern things. Julia, for example, and Scala is even a bit too modern.)
akacase 11y ago
Your JVM runs on all things written in C and the concurrency primitives are far more elegant in Go than in Java.
- jerven 11y ago
  Agree and disagree. The thing I was going for is that compscience advantages don't seem to matter for language adoption. i.e. popularity does not correlate to compsci purity.
  - akacase 11y ago
    I understand; however, less is more: http://commandcenter.blogspot.com/2012/06/less-is-exponentially-more.html http://commandcenter.blogspot.com/2012/06/less-is-exponentia...
  - dschiptsov 11y ago
    Yes, there are different forces in a play. Let's name it as The Law of a Decent Runtime, and The Law of Attention to Details, and The Law of a Bazar of Ignorant.)) The Law Of a Decent Runtime is very simple - evolving a decent runtime is very costly and time-consuming. It is also related to the second law and to the inverse of the third - which is a the Law of Dictature of The Most Competent. A decent runtime cannot be produced without talent, time, financing, competence and attention to details. The examples are what came out of Xerox Parc, Bell labs, Ericsson and the best parts of academia (MIT Scheme culture, Scala, Standard ML, LLVM and Haskell, monads aside). There are also many in-house (Tensorflow) and sponsored open source porjects (LLVM, Golang, Julia, Torch, to name a few). Basically, it is about resources spent on a talent. What is important distinction - a decent runtime cannot be produced by the Bazaar of Ignorant (PHP, amateur Java code, SAP, and other "fractals of a bad design"). The Linux kernel is very special example, because it combines the law of big numbers, and all these three - it is a product of a whole planet of competent volunteers and paid developers - unlike PHP or Java ecosystem there is very high barrier to entry, thanks to The Dictature of The Most Competent .) The law of Attention To Details - is quite obvious, and related to the first. This is why most of successful projects had a passionate and competent leader who sets the standards, be it Linux kernel, Erlang, Nginx, Gambit Scheme, Python, OpenBSD, Redis, Scala, SBCL, PostgreSQL, you name it. Popularity has nothing to do with it. It is based on the principle of instant gratification (PHP, MongoDB) or Availability Bias boosted by paid content brainwashing (Java, SAP, MS) without understanding and preferably any thinking. Popularity doesn't mean quality at all, be it junkfood or PHP.
    - jdmichal 11y ago
      Your Law of a Decent Runtime reminds me exactly of the "Lisp Curse": http://www.winestockwebdesign.com/Essays/Lisp_Curse.html http://www.winestockwebdesign.com/Essays/Lisp_Curse.html
      - dschiptsov 11y ago
        There is another good reading.) http://the-programmers-stone.com/the-original-talks/day-1-thinking-about-thinking/ http://the-programmers-stone.com/the-original-talks/day-1-th...

incepted 11y ago

> Any PL student of a decent school, if he is not a hypocrite, would tell you that Java is the worst thing that happened to CS since MS DOS, That's why we don't listen to students to make this kind of uninformed claims. Java has flaws, for sure, but calling it the "worst thing since MS DOS" can only come from someone who lacks perspective and experience.

dschiptsov 11y ago
Why, I have experience of re-instalation and restoring data from backup each time Business Objects JVM process segfaults, because there is no way keep track of state unless it shuts down property. How about this perspective?
- incepted 11y ago
  Good for you but it doesn't make your previous statement any less of a preposterous hyperbole.
  - dschiptsov 11y ago
    Tell us, please, what language comes to one's mind instantly afer reading this chapter below? http://the-programmers-stone.com/the-original-talks/day-1-thinking-about-thinking/ http://the-programmers-stone.com/the-original-talks/day-1-th...