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I don't know, but one thing is for sure. All dominant technologies that turned out to have a great impact once started out as something that many thought was a

I don't know, but one thing is for sure. All dominant technologies that turned out to have a great impact once started out as something that many thought was a passing fad. Also, there are some languages that dominate significant niches seemingly forever, like Python as a frontend for math, science and machine learning or R for statistics. It's very sticky even though I never quite understood why you would want such a huge language barrier between those who implement interesting algorithms in C/C++ and those who use them. I would have thought that there is more overlap between these two groups. I can imagine a similar role for Go in Unix utilities and backend infrastructure.

pron 10y ago
> All dominant technologies that turned out to have a great impact once started out as something that many thought was a passing fad. Absolutely, but all fads started out as something many thought was lasting... > It's very sticky even though I never quite understood why you would want such a huge language barrier between those who implement interesting algorithms in C/C++ and those who use them. I'm not sure what you mean. My field is distributed/concurrent algorithms, and especially distributed databases, where Java has a significant lead over C/C++ where interesting algorithms are concerned.
- fauigerzigerk 10y ago
  >I'm not sure what you mean. I mean things like Theano, Caffe, TensorFlow, torch, mxnet, etc, basically all the leading deep learning frameworks. It's similar in several other math/science related fields. Not that Java doesn't exist in these fields, but it's an also ran.
  - pjmlp 10y ago
    You forgetting the IoT devices coupled with distributed computing server side as well. Specially with the increasing focus on saving battery and making them as small as possible.
  - pron 10y ago
    First of all, that's a very small domain. I can similarly say that C++ is an "also ran" in business server-side applications. Second, I don't think that Watson, Spark and H2O qualify as merely "also ran".
    - fauigerzigerk 10y ago
      >I can similarly say that C++ is an "also ran" in business server-side applications Absolutely you can, because it's true. C++ usage has declined dramatically in the last 10 years. It's no longer used as a mainstream language for business applications (something it was never good at). >Second, I don't think that Watson, Spark and H2O qualify as merely "also ran". Spark and H2O don't even qualify as also rans in the space I'm talking about. Watson may be an also ran, and significant parts of it are written in C++. I have no inside information, but it's not too difficult to imagine which parts that would be. It's pretty simple to see what's happening. Just look at Google. Google is a very Java friendly company. They do a lot in Java, just not their core AI stuff. Data shovelling and integration in Java. Core algorithms in C++. That's the pattern. So yes C++ is used in smaller domains. But these are the most interesting, most innovative and fastest growing domains. Those who really specialize in these areas overwhelmingly use C++. And it's entirely clear to me why that is the case. I tried to use Java for it (and Go). It doesn't work. I have to be able to load a ton of data into memory without constantly fighting a garbage collector, and I have to be able to specify exactly how that data is laid out in memory. pjmlp reminded us of IoT. Another up and coming field where Java isn't going to be the first choice. Same with games, video processing, etc. Java is falling back in most new application areas. Interestingly, web browsers seem to be a pretty good yardstick for many other completely unrelated tasks. Can you write a web browser in it that is up there with the best of them? If the answer is no, then that language is not going to be viable for a lot of other tasks as well.
      - pron 10y ago
        > Core algorithms in C++. That's the pattern. One reason they do that (that's what leading Java people at Google told me), is that their core libraries need to integrate with all their codebases, some are in Java, some in C++, and some in Python. Another is indeed "intrinsic", but: > But these are the most interesting, most innovative and fastest growing domains. Those who really specialize in these areas overwhelmingly use C++. I generally agree (as an algorithms and C++ guy myself, although I now use Java for tricky algorithms, too, because I do concurrent data structures, and those really benefit from a GC), but the languages the algorithms-people use have often been distinct from what the industry at large uses, and that's what we're talking about. > It doesn't work. Well, I guess H2O would beg to differ. As to data layout, you're right that's being addressed as we speak. > Java is falling back in most new application areas. Those application areas have always existed, Java has never been a leader in those sectors, they're not growing, and Java has still been the most successful language ever. Look, we're not talking Java vs. C++ here. We're talking Java vs. Haskell, Erlang, Go etc.. Those alternatives have even less success than Java in all the areas you mention. > If the answer is no, then that language is not going to be viable for a lot of other tasks as well. That is provably the wrong yardstick. Java has never been the best choice for a browser, even while being by far the most used language in the history of computing. We're not counting each type of task equally, but multiplying each task by the number of people involved in doing it.
- pjmlp 10y ago
  Is Java being used at all in HPC? Apparently the GPGPU support is still on for sometime after Java 10.
  - pron 10y ago
    I don't know, but there's a good OpenCL binding: http://www.jocl.org/ http://www.jocl.org/

pron 10y ago

> All dominant technologies that turned out to have a great impact once started out as something that many thought was a passing fad. Absolutely, but all fads started out as something many thought was lasting... > It's very sticky even though I never quite understood why you would want such a huge language barrier between those who implement interesting algorithms in C/C++ and those who use them. I'm not sure what you mean. My field is distributed/concurrent algorithms, and especially distributed databases, where Java has a significant lead over C/C++ where interesting algorithms are concerned.

fauigerzigerk 10y ago
>I'm not sure what you mean. I mean things like Theano, Caffe, TensorFlow, torch, mxnet, etc, basically all the leading deep learning frameworks. It's similar in several other math/science related fields. Not that Java doesn't exist in these fields, but it's an also ran.
- pjmlp 10y ago
  You forgetting the IoT devices coupled with distributed computing server side as well. Specially with the increasing focus on saving battery and making them as small as possible.
- pron 10y ago
  First of all, that's a very small domain. I can similarly say that C++ is an "also ran" in business server-side applications. Second, I don't think that Watson, Spark and H2O qualify as merely "also ran".
  - fauigerzigerk 10y ago
    >I can similarly say that C++ is an "also ran" in business server-side applications Absolutely you can, because it's true. C++ usage has declined dramatically in the last 10 years. It's no longer used as a mainstream language for business applications (something it was never good at). >Second, I don't think that Watson, Spark and H2O qualify as merely "also ran". Spark and H2O don't even qualify as also rans in the space I'm talking about. Watson may be an also ran, and significant parts of it are written in C++. I have no inside information, but it's not too difficult to imagine which parts that would be. It's pretty simple to see what's happening. Just look at Google. Google is a very Java friendly company. They do a lot in Java, just not their core AI stuff. Data shovelling and integration in Java. Core algorithms in C++. That's the pattern. So yes C++ is used in smaller domains. But these are the most interesting, most innovative and fastest growing domains. Those who really specialize in these areas overwhelmingly use C++. And it's entirely clear to me why that is the case. I tried to use Java for it (and Go). It doesn't work. I have to be able to load a ton of data into memory without constantly fighting a garbage collector, and I have to be able to specify exactly how that data is laid out in memory. pjmlp reminded us of IoT. Another up and coming field where Java isn't going to be the first choice. Same with games, video processing, etc. Java is falling back in most new application areas. Interestingly, web browsers seem to be a pretty good yardstick for many other completely unrelated tasks. Can you write a web browser in it that is up there with the best of them? If the answer is no, then that language is not going to be viable for a lot of other tasks as well.
    - pron 10y ago
      > Core algorithms in C++. That's the pattern. One reason they do that (that's what leading Java people at Google told me), is that their core libraries need to integrate with all their codebases, some are in Java, some in C++, and some in Python. Another is indeed "intrinsic", but: > But these are the most interesting, most innovative and fastest growing domains. Those who really specialize in these areas overwhelmingly use C++. I generally agree (as an algorithms and C++ guy myself, although I now use Java for tricky algorithms, too, because I do concurrent data structures, and those really benefit from a GC), but the languages the algorithms-people use have often been distinct from what the industry at large uses, and that's what we're talking about. > It doesn't work. Well, I guess H2O would beg to differ. As to data layout, you're right that's being addressed as we speak. > Java is falling back in most new application areas. Those application areas have always existed, Java has never been a leader in those sectors, they're not growing, and Java has still been the most successful language ever. Look, we're not talking Java vs. C++ here. We're talking Java vs. Haskell, Erlang, Go etc.. Those alternatives have even less success than Java in all the areas you mention. > If the answer is no, then that language is not going to be viable for a lot of other tasks as well. That is provably the wrong yardstick. Java has never been the best choice for a browser, even while being by far the most used language in the history of computing. We're not counting each type of task equally, but multiplying each task by the number of people involved in doing it.
pjmlp 10y ago
Is Java being used at all in HPC? Apparently the GPGPU support is still on for sometime after Java 10.
- pron 10y ago
  I don't know, but there's a good OpenCL binding: http://www.jocl.org/ http://www.jocl.org/