6 ms·

Java programs are portable. Java is popular. It feels like the article implies causality, but I fail to see it. My first programming language was Java (vers

Java programs are portable. Java is popular. It feels like the article implies causality, but I fail to see it. My first programming language was Java (version 1.2) and it was the easiest programming language to start with because it had everything that a student would need, in one place: jdk, tutorials, documentation, and language specification. This may not sound like a big deal now, because many other programming languages provide similar resources. You just go to xyzlang.org and you find all the resources, but in those days Java set the standard (or at least that is what I thought) for providing all the resources in place for someone to get started with the language. I did not choose Java at that time because it was portable.

mycall 8y ago
On a lower level, I think Intel did the same for 8086 assembly. Their documentation was volumes and included everything you ever needed to know, including all operating system integrations (IRQs, syscalls, etc)
Gibbon1 8y ago
I don't have enough first hand experience to back this up, but I think I read someone claim that the early JVM was very close to the p-machine. I think a lot of mid era (late 70's early 80's) programmers learned the p-machine in school. Wouldn't be a stretch that it was the informal template. Reason p-code didn't take off was because it was too slow on personal computers.
- int_19h 8y ago
  > I think I read someone claim that the early JVM was very close to the p-machine Looking at P-code descriptions, I can't say it resembles JVM bytecode all that much. It seems to be somewhat more low-level. https://homepages.cwi.nl/~steven/pascal/book/10pcode.html https://homepages.cwi.nl/~steven/pascal/book/10pcode.html
- charlysl 8y ago
  Well, this is very much the case according to the article, where James Gosling is quoted as saying: “Then fast-forward a bunch of years, when I was trying to do the project that Java came out of. I had to do this architecture-neutral distribution format, and then I just went ka-ching! You know, this p-code translator thing would actually just drop in there.” The article explained before how Gosling learned about the p-machine: Gosling could have done this by making the requisite fussy changes in every application program and recompiling. But he found an easier way: He wrote code that turned the VAX into a p-machine. Standing on the shoulders of giants.
hyperpallium 8y ago
Yes, Java was a whole product, and that was a great thing. Also: helpful error messages. But was your choice to learn Java somehow related to it being popular in industry? More so in the past, portability - meaning not being locked-in to a specific vendor who could then screw you - was a big deal in industry. Today, there's much less heterogeneity (x86, ARM and...?). Part of Oracle's pitch for their database was that they ported it to different machines, so users weren't locked in (even if they didn't actually use it on different machines).
- tapanjk 8y ago
  > But was your choice to learn Java somehow related to it being popular in industry? Yes, but only partly. I had evaluated becoming one of Java, C++, or Oracle programmer (I know the last one is not the same thing, but was a career option nonetheless).
- taneq 8y ago
  Ironically, portability was one of the main drawcards (well, that and being able to embed it in web pages) when I first learned it, but I quickly found that a Java application was far less portable, in reality, than an i386 Windows executable. That one friend with a Mac might be able to run it but nobody else could without downloading 65MB of JRE.
  - hyperpallium 8y ago
    "write once, debug everywhere"
wtracy 8y ago
On top of what you mentioned: Java hopped onto the Object Oriented Programming bandwagon just as it was getting a lot of buzz. To a lot of people, Java and C++ are the canonical Object Oriented languages. (Sorry, Alan Kay.) Of those two, Java has the shallowest learning curve. Java was also many developers' first introduction to a language runtime with a "fail fast" approach to fault handling. Java featured runtime bounds checking and runtime type checking. Couple that with the very detailed (for the time) stack traces that the runtime produced, along with automatic memory management, and you have a powerful set of tools for building (relatively!) bug-free software. (For comparison, imagine trying to debug a C++ program that intermittently crashes on an off-site customer's computer.) Object Oriented design, garbage collected memory management, and runtime error checking all had roots in other languages (Smalltalk and Lisp come to mind) but Java was the first to package all those things together in one well-documented, industry-oriented tool. Most of those predecessor languages were widely perceived as by academics for academics, which brings me to the final piece of the puzzle: Sun nailed developer outreach. It doesn't matter how good your language is if nobody has heard of it.
- zephyrfalcon 8y ago
  > It doesn't matter how good your language is if nobody has heard of it. Or how bad it is, if you can shove it down people's throats. But that is true for any software, not just programming languages...
- setpatchaddress 8y ago
  > Java has the shallowest learning curve [citation needed]
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
    Surely not if the comparison is with C++.
  - _ph_ 8y ago
charlysl 8y ago
And not only that, Java came with portable standard libraries for pretty much everything: collections, threads, networking, GUI, database interface, etc, which are as much part of Java as the language itself: the Java runtime. C and C++ had some standard libs too, but nowhere near as many. So, it was not only that you could rely on your compiled code to be portable, you could rely on many crucial libs and dependencies being portable too, something which we may take for granted these days.
protomyth 8y ago
Sun spent a whole lot of cash advocating for Java. From some very nice, slick books to their own salespeople. It was the "internet language" with Javascript supposed to be its lesser cousin. I was going to teach a programming class at an out of the way community college in fall of 96 and someone from Sun called me about it. I took it they were a bit serious. It was also billed as a better C++. I don't think anyone since has put that much juice behind a language. The nearest thing is Apple with Swift which is still platform limited.

mycall 8y ago

On a lower level, I think Intel did the same for 8086 assembly. Their documentation was volumes and included everything you ever needed to know, including all operating system integrations (IRQs, syscalls, etc)

Gibbon1 8y ago

I don't have enough first hand experience to back this up, but I think I read someone claim that the early JVM was very close to the p-machine. I think a lot of mid era (late 70's early 80's) programmers learned the p-machine in school. Wouldn't be a stretch that it was the informal template. Reason p-code didn't take off was because it was too slow on personal computers.

int_19h 8y ago
> I think I read someone claim that the early JVM was very close to the p-machine Looking at P-code descriptions, I can't say it resembles JVM bytecode all that much. It seems to be somewhat more low-level. https://homepages.cwi.nl/~steven/pascal/book/10pcode.html https://homepages.cwi.nl/~steven/pascal/book/10pcode.html
charlysl 8y ago
Well, this is very much the case according to the article, where James Gosling is quoted as saying: “Then fast-forward a bunch of years, when I was trying to do the project that Java came out of. I had to do this architecture-neutral distribution format, and then I just went ka-ching! You know, this p-code translator thing would actually just drop in there.” The article explained before how Gosling learned about the p-machine: Gosling could have done this by making the requisite fussy changes in every application program and recompiling. But he found an easier way: He wrote code that turned the VAX into a p-machine. Standing on the shoulders of giants.

hyperpallium 8y ago

Yes, Java was a whole product, and that was a great thing. Also: helpful error messages. But was your choice to learn Java somehow related to it being popular in industry? More so in the past, portability - meaning not being locked-in to a specific vendor who could then screw you - was a big deal in industry. Today, there's much less heterogeneity (x86, ARM and...?). Part of Oracle's pitch for their database was that they ported it to different machines, so users weren't locked in (even if they didn't actually use it on different machines).

tapanjk 8y ago
> But was your choice to learn Java somehow related to it being popular in industry? Yes, but only partly. I had evaluated becoming one of Java, C++, or Oracle programmer (I know the last one is not the same thing, but was a career option nonetheless).
taneq 8y ago
Ironically, portability was one of the main drawcards (well, that and being able to embed it in web pages) when I first learned it, but I quickly found that a Java application was far less portable, in reality, than an i386 Windows executable. That one friend with a Mac might be able to run it but nobody else could without downloading 65MB of JRE.
- hyperpallium 8y ago
  "write once, debug everywhere"

wtracy 8y ago

On top of what you mentioned: Java hopped onto the Object Oriented Programming bandwagon just as it was getting a lot of buzz. To a lot of people, Java and C++ are the canonical Object Oriented languages. (Sorry, Alan Kay.) Of those two, Java has the shallowest learning curve. Java was also many developers' first introduction to a language runtime with a "fail fast" approach to fault handling. Java featured runtime bounds checking and runtime type checking. Couple that with the very detailed (for the time) stack traces that the runtime produced, along with automatic memory management, and you have a powerful set of tools for building (relatively!) bug-free software. (For comparison, imagine trying to debug a C++ program that intermittently crashes on an off-site customer's computer.) Object Oriented design, garbage collected memory management, and runtime error checking all had roots in other languages (Smalltalk and Lisp come to mind) but Java was the first to package all those things together in one well-documented, industry-oriented tool. Most of those predecessor languages were widely perceived as by academics for academics, which brings me to the final piece of the puzzle: Sun nailed developer outreach. It doesn't matter how good your language is if nobody has heard of it.

zephyrfalcon 8y ago
> It doesn't matter how good your language is if nobody has heard of it. Or how bad it is, if you can shove it down people's throats. But that is true for any software, not just programming languages...
setpatchaddress 8y ago
> Java has the shallowest learning curve [citation needed]
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- seanmcdirmid 8y ago
  Surely not if the comparison is with C++.
- _ph_ 8y ago

charlysl 8y ago

And not only that, Java came with portable standard libraries for pretty much everything: collections, threads, networking, GUI, database interface, etc, which are as much part of Java as the language itself: the Java runtime. C and C++ had some standard libs too, but nowhere near as many. So, it was not only that you could rely on your compiled code to be portable, you could rely on many crucial libs and dependencies being portable too, something which we may take for granted these days.

protomyth 8y ago

Sun spent a whole lot of cash advocating for Java. From some very nice, slick books to their own salespeople. It was the "internet language" with Javascript supposed to be its lesser cousin. I was going to teach a programming class at an out of the way community college in fall of 96 and someone from Sun called me about it. I took it they were a bit serious. It was also billed as a better C++. I don't think anyone since has put that much juice behind a language. The nearest thing is Apple with Swift which is still platform limited.