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"InfoQ: This is probably provable (one way or another), but do you suspect that the JVM's use has decreased over all, or that Java proper has decreased while Ru

"InfoQ: This is probably provable (one way or another), but do you suspect that the JVM's use has decreased over all, or that Java proper has decreased while Ruby/Scala /Jython /Groovy have taken up the slack? Actually none of these languages make Tiobe's top 20. That doesn't mean they aren't important or valuable; they are. But they aren't mainstream, yet. That said, I'm absolutely thrilled by the amount of language research and design going on these days. There are plenty of good ideas out there, and it's marvelous that people are exploring them." Josh is a bright guy and Java isn't the terrible language everyone may think it to be (though it isn't my preferred language). Ruby is in the Tiobe top 20 though... good to see that he at least recognizes the good that's coming out of other languages.

ZeroGravitas 17y ago
I think in this context, and given the other contenders listed, he means JRuby running on the JVM to make up for the fall in Java.
prog 17y ago
I am eagerly waiting for JDK 7 with invokedynamic support. I will be good to see the improvements it will bring to dynamic languages like Jython and JRuby. I wonder if Oracle is going to be conservative or go all out and consider features like tail calls.
- strlen 17y ago
  I would very much like a very simple, basic, tail recursion to be available in Java. Not tail call elimination in the same way as is specified by Scheme. It doesn't even require the a JVM change, it can be done by the compiler: Scala does this. You could use an annotation (@Tailrecursive) to verify that it happens (or error out). C does this with "-O2" (factorial is a bad example, unfortunately as there are algorithms that are much more naturally defined in terms of tail recursion): long factorial_helper(int n, int acc) { if (n==1) return acc; return factorial_helper(n - 1, n * acc); } becomes: factorial_helper: .LFB16: jmp .L8 .p2align 4,,7 .L6: imull %edi, %esi subl $1, %edi .L8: cmpl $1, %edi jne .L6 movslq %esi,%rax ret Looks very similar to what my own assembly would look like. Now with -O4 the assembly becomes completely unrecognizable (which is why higher level languages may be faster than lower level ones). Continuations would be another improvement possible at language rather than VM level, with same effect (allowing efficient and elegant implementation of some algorithms).

ZeroGravitas 17y ago

I think in this context, and given the other contenders listed, he means JRuby running on the JVM to make up for the fall in Java.

prog 17y ago

I am eagerly waiting for JDK 7 with invokedynamic support. I will be good to see the improvements it will bring to dynamic languages like Jython and JRuby. I wonder if Oracle is going to be conservative or go all out and consider features like tail calls.

strlen 17y ago
I would very much like a very simple, basic, tail recursion to be available in Java. Not tail call elimination in the same way as is specified by Scheme. It doesn't even require the a JVM change, it can be done by the compiler: Scala does this. You could use an annotation (@Tailrecursive) to verify that it happens (or error out). C does this with "-O2" (factorial is a bad example, unfortunately as there are algorithms that are much more naturally defined in terms of tail recursion): long factorial_helper(int n, int acc) { if (n==1) return acc; return factorial_helper(n - 1, n * acc); } becomes: factorial_helper: .LFB16: jmp .L8 .p2align 4,,7 .L6: imull %edi, %esi subl $1, %edi .L8: cmpl $1, %edi jne .L6 movslq %esi,%rax ret Looks very similar to what my own assembly would look like. Now with -O4 the assembly becomes completely unrecognizable (which is why higher level languages may be faster than lower level ones). Continuations would be another improvement possible at language rather than VM level, with same effect (allowing efficient and elegant implementation of some algorithms).