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> Syntactic coroutines, on the other hand, were something to avoid. Could you articulate or point me to some of the arguments or thoughts that lead to the conc

> Syntactic coroutines, on the other hand, were something to avoid. Could you articulate or point me to some of the arguments or thoughts that lead to the conclusion here? I know and understand the term "colored functions", but I'd love to read a real analysis of the pros and cons of colored functions, because I personally go back and forth on whether I think they are bad or good. On the one hand, having a function that is explicitly marked as "this thing needs to be treated specially because it may block for a long time" is actually kind of nice. On the other hand, it's hard to write generic functions/tools when you have to handle different colored closures, for example. Also on that hand is the fact that I can still write a function as the "wrong color" if I'm inept. Or was that decision based on something other than language semantics? > There are certainly languages we consider serious competitors, but Kotlin is still an order of magnitude in size away from being one of them. Just out of curiosity, what are those languages? C#? PHP? Also, this statement makes you sound like Goliath. I don't disagree with you that Kotlin, in particular, is probably not a huge "threat" to Java. But you're slinging numbers like a politician or a PR person: "Kotlin, which has reached ~2-4% on the Java Platform, and might even reach 5-7% some day". Java has 25 years of legacy- are you seriously saying that picking up 5% of JVM code in < 10 years from the HOST LANGUAGE OF THE PLATFORM is not a little unnerving? Also, do you only care about the JVM? What if everyone switch from Java to C#? Would you still brag that "90% of code on the JVM is Java" even if 0 new projects started choosing Java? I mean, those are unlikely events, but I'm just saying "there's lies, damn lies, and statistics". The truth is that until pretty recently, Java was really lagging behind and many devs were cursing their fate that they were still working on Java projects. Java 8 was a huge leap forward, and Java 15 is another sizeable leap. So I suspect that Java will stop the bleeding. But it was not at all guaranteed to stay a behemoth, IMO. > Nope. First of all, Kotlin doesn't have records. Kotlin-like data classes were something we looked at (we look at all languages) and said, we don't want that, we want records. Second, the inspiration for records was ML. So records are actually yet another example where we decided not to go in the same direction as Kotlin. This isn't to say Kotlin did something worse or better, but it did do something decidedly different. I haven't used them yet, but I think that records look better than Kotlin's data classes. But the only difference I see is that they don't auto-generate a `copy()` method, like Kotlin's data classes do. I believe that was a big mistake on Kotlin's part. Is there some other way that Java records are different than data classes? Because if that's the only difference, it sounds really disingenuous to suggest that records are not inspired by data classes. Like, what are the odds that it took until 201x for you (all) to decide to copy records from ML? You certainly didn't do it before Kotlin for some reason.

pron 6y ago
> Could you articulate or point me to some of the arguments or thoughts that lead to the conclusion here? I gave a talk about exactly that recently at Code Mesh. I expect them to post the video soon. https://codesync.global/speaker/ron-pressler/#745why-user-mode-threads-are-often-the-correct-answer https://codesync.global/speaker/ron-pressler/#745why-user-mo... > Also, this statement makes you sound like Goliath. Maybe, but it's not just a matter of size but also trajectory. And, as you say, our competition is mostly off the Java platform. My point wasn't to brag, but to put matters in perspective. There are dozens of nascent languages, the vast majority of which will never make it to the top ten, let alone the top five. And while a few of them will, no doubt, one day unseat the incumbents, we obviously don't think of all of them as "threats." > what are those languages? The obvious ones. It's not that we don't know that some smaller languages will one day become big, some will even surprise us all, but extrapolating early growth to long-term success is certainly not a good model. > Like, what are the odds that it took until 201x for you (all) to decide to copy records from ML? You certainly didn't do it before Kotlin for some reason. As I wrote in another comment, Kotlin's arrival and Java's "boost" are both a response to the same event: Java's decline in Sun's dying days. Once Oracle increased investment, it was mostly a matter of prioritising which features to do first. Records were seen as less urgent as lambdas, so they came later.
- ragnese 6y ago
  You didn't answer a few of the interspersed questions, so I'll press you on the records one. What about Java records are different than Kotlin's data classes besides forgoing the auto-generated `copy()` method? I understand there are some implementation details, such as inheriting from a Record base class, and how it handles serialization. But I mean as a user. Can records implement interfaces? Can records be variants in a sealed class hierarchy? Can records have a private primary constructor? Can I customize the getters (to e.g., make defensive copies)? For other people reading, the answers for Kotlin data classes are: Yes, Yes, Not Really, No. As an aside, I understand you are an Oracle employee. When you post under this username are you acting in any kind of official capacity for Oracle? Like, is part of your job, so to speak, to have a social media presence? I'm not suggesting anything negative- it's totally fair to invest in outreach, to answer questions, clarify things, etc. I was just curious if I'm talking to "a guy who loves the project he works on" or "a representative of a company".

pron 6y ago

> Could you articulate or point me to some of the arguments or thoughts that lead to the conclusion here? I gave a talk about exactly that recently at Code Mesh. I expect them to post the video soon. https://codesync.global/speaker/ron-pressler/#745why-user-mode-threads-are-often-the-correct-answer https://codesync.global/speaker/ron-pressler/#745why-user-mo... > Also, this statement makes you sound like Goliath. Maybe, but it's not just a matter of size but also trajectory. And, as you say, our competition is mostly off the Java platform. My point wasn't to brag, but to put matters in perspective. There are dozens of nascent languages, the vast majority of which will never make it to the top ten, let alone the top five. And while a few of them will, no doubt, one day unseat the incumbents, we obviously don't think of all of them as "threats." > what are those languages? The obvious ones. It's not that we don't know that some smaller languages will one day become big, some will even surprise us all, but extrapolating early growth to long-term success is certainly not a good model. > Like, what are the odds that it took until 201x for you (all) to decide to copy records from ML? You certainly didn't do it before Kotlin for some reason. As I wrote in another comment, Kotlin's arrival and Java's "boost" are both a response to the same event: Java's decline in Sun's dying days. Once Oracle increased investment, it was mostly a matter of prioritising which features to do first. Records were seen as less urgent as lambdas, so they came later.

ragnese 6y ago
You didn't answer a few of the interspersed questions, so I'll press you on the records one. What about Java records are different than Kotlin's data classes besides forgoing the auto-generated `copy()` method? I understand there are some implementation details, such as inheriting from a Record base class, and how it handles serialization. But I mean as a user. Can records implement interfaces? Can records be variants in a sealed class hierarchy? Can records have a private primary constructor? Can I customize the getters (to e.g., make defensive copies)? For other people reading, the answers for Kotlin data classes are: Yes, Yes, Not Really, No. As an aside, I understand you are an Oracle employee. When you post under this username are you acting in any kind of official capacity for Oracle? Like, is part of your job, so to speak, to have a social media presence? I'm not suggesting anything negative- it's totally fair to invest in outreach, to answer questions, clarify things, etc. I was just curious if I'm talking to "a guy who loves the project he works on" or "a representative of a company".