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Java will never, ever replace c++. Because there will always be a need for stuff that "really compiles" rather than "compiles with respect to the JVM" for both

by Allocator2008 18y ago

Java will never, ever replace c++. Because there will always be a need for stuff that "really compiles" rather than "compiles with respect to the JVM" for both performance, and reliability issues. In my personal opinion, Java is a fad for children. However, that may be a bit harsh. Perhaps Java too has its place. But just as sport cars, loved by teenagers, won't ever replace the need for a reliable sedan in one's more mature years, similarly, there will always be grownup applications that need the speed and reliability of c/c++, even if they are not as "easy to program" (read: rely on plug-in libs) or are not as "flashy" in terms of the ui. Just as I personally no longer fancy swing sets, I really haven't a need for SWING either. :-) (Oh, one other thing I almost forgot: Java doesn't have pointers. No programming language without pointers should be taken seriously by people who have reached age 21. It's kind of like having a car without a combustion engine. It's just nonsense.)

prospero 18y ago
I honestly can't tell if this is satire. Does your universe of programming languages seriously consist of just C++ and Java? I'm glad that coding in C++ makes you feel like more of a man, but Java's not the only competition. C++ and Java have both (awkwardly) added closures in their latest specification, so they're obviously maneuvering against something outside of your little duality. Also, I don't see how you can knock Java for its libraries when C++ is essentially worthless for large-scale development without Boost.
- lhorn 18y ago
  prospero, I have been looking for C++ replacement for desktop programs non-stop for at least 5 years and found nothing. Rubies, lisps and pythons are great in a little dark corner of server-side development where everything is under your control, but for targeting thousands of varying desktops you just can't take that route since many additional variables come into play: size of downloads, performance, startup times, windows compatibility, etc etc etc. Plus, all VM-based languages suffer from so-so integration into native OS or/and excessive weight. You can write an IDE or an Excel replacement in them, sure, but most desktop software tends to be much smaller. My last C++ project was a background daemon that would download your RSS feeds and do some fancy parsing. I wish I could show you how much memory Java prototype has eaten vs C++ version processing the same OPML file. No, C++ is not "essentially worthless" without Boost. In fact I never use all of Boost: your build times becomes #1 conversation topic in the office when you do. It's better to cherry-pick a few important and lightweight pieces (like pointers, any, functional, etc). Don't forget about HUGE selection of plain C libraries too. Whatever C++ has been used for is still being written and re-written in C++ as we speak. Newer languages and paradigms wiped out the giant Visual Basic army of developers (yes, this is what people used to code "basecamps of the 90s" in, but I don't see these languages threaten C++/C/Obj-C domination for desktop software on Win/Linux/OSX. In fact, how many native Python or Ruby GUI libraries are out there? I haven't heard of one. Only bindings to GTK/Qt. With all that said, I will be the first to jump the wagon. If I ever get so lucky.
  - prospero 18y ago
    If you have a small, well-scoped application, like your RSS daemon, C++ is going to be best of breed in most cases. Similarly, if performance is your absolute primary concern, there's nothing out there that can compete. For most desktop software, though, neither of these things are true. The design and scope of the application are constantly changing, and mostly it just sits there. I write desktop software for a living, including a lot of CPU-intensive graphics stuff, and I'm infinitely grateful that I work in C# rather than C++. It makes me many times more productive, makes my work conceptually cleaner, and makes me a happier person all round. There's a memory cost, to be sure, but it's acceptable, and 90% of the clock cycles are spent in C libraries no matter what, so I don't see much of a downside. My background's in 3D graphics and computational geometry. I've always enjoyed working in C++ on computationally intensive problems, and reducing a problem to its cleanest, fastest implementation. But I think that in the real world, 99% of the time, what really matters are the features, and that the widespread fascination with efficiency is mostly just techno-fetishism.
    - kingkongrevenge 18y ago
      > 90% of the clock cycles are spent in C libraries no matter what, so I don't see much of a downside Which of course raises the question: why C#/Java instead of C++ in conjunction with something like perl or python?
      - prospero 18y ago
        I write Windows applications. C# has Win32 bindings that are vastly superior to anything else out there. There are tools designed to let me leverage these capabilities that are much more polished than the comparable tools for Python, Ruby, or anything else. C# isn't the best language out there, and certainly not the most elegant, but it's been carefully designed by some very smart people, and it shows. At the end of the day, for what I do, it's the best tool available.
        kingkongrevenge 18y ago
scott_s 18y ago
Electric cars don't have combustion engines, which kills your analogy. Although maybe it doesn't, since a language without pointers is valid for non-systems programming.
alecco 18y ago
Java will never, ever replace c++ Of course not. Because there will always be a need for stuff that "really compiles" rather than "compiles with respect to the JVM" for both performance, and reliability issues. Compile-time optimizations are great and GC kills caches and locality, but there are run-time optimizations too to balance that argument. In my personal opinion, Java is a fad for children. However, that may be a bit harsh. Yes, too harsh and not rational. I dislike languages that imposed themselves by hundreds of millions of advertisement and lobbying instead of having programmers freely choose. <the car and teenagers rant> Sorry, no. The equivalent of the teenagers in programming actually dislike Java and are into more dynamic languages, like Python, Ruby, and even Javascript. not as "easy to program" It is amazing how easier it is nowadays to program in C++ with the latest template libraries (STL and Boost.) <the pointer rant> C++ is distancing itself from the low level C-style pointers (well, assembly-style for the purists.) You need them less now. It is kind of tricky to avoid leaks but if you memorize a dozen patterns you are safe.
nostrademons 18y ago
The same was said about assembly when C was first being used professionally for microcomputer development. C was too slow, it didn't give the programmer enough control, how can you possibly get stuff done without having full access to the computer's registers, what if you wanted to use processor-specific instructions, etc? People got over it. Many of the complaints are actually true - there are some domains where you still need to use assembly. But people figure they'll just use C for the main program and toss the assembly stuff in special subroutines in the arch/ subdirectory, and forget about it for the 99% of the time it doesn't matter.
- alecco 18y ago
  And the ironic part is your programming language of choice is coded in C and uses libraries with optimizations in assembly. When all you know is the hammer... This saying applies to both extremes, be it a dynamic language or a low level language. I try to use the best tool for the job, from my knowledge chest. That's why it's important to learn several languages.

prospero 18y ago

I honestly can't tell if this is satire. Does your universe of programming languages seriously consist of just C++ and Java? I'm glad that coding in C++ makes you feel like more of a man, but Java's not the only competition. C++ and Java have both (awkwardly) added closures in their latest specification, so they're obviously maneuvering against something outside of your little duality. Also, I don't see how you can knock Java for its libraries when C++ is essentially worthless for large-scale development without Boost.

lhorn 18y ago
prospero, I have been looking for C++ replacement for desktop programs non-stop for at least 5 years and found nothing. Rubies, lisps and pythons are great in a little dark corner of server-side development where everything is under your control, but for targeting thousands of varying desktops you just can't take that route since many additional variables come into play: size of downloads, performance, startup times, windows compatibility, etc etc etc. Plus, all VM-based languages suffer from so-so integration into native OS or/and excessive weight. You can write an IDE or an Excel replacement in them, sure, but most desktop software tends to be much smaller. My last C++ project was a background daemon that would download your RSS feeds and do some fancy parsing. I wish I could show you how much memory Java prototype has eaten vs C++ version processing the same OPML file. No, C++ is not "essentially worthless" without Boost. In fact I never use all of Boost: your build times becomes #1 conversation topic in the office when you do. It's better to cherry-pick a few important and lightweight pieces (like pointers, any, functional, etc). Don't forget about HUGE selection of plain C libraries too. Whatever C++ has been used for is still being written and re-written in C++ as we speak. Newer languages and paradigms wiped out the giant Visual Basic army of developers (yes, this is what people used to code "basecamps of the 90s" in, but I don't see these languages threaten C++/C/Obj-C domination for desktop software on Win/Linux/OSX. In fact, how many native Python or Ruby GUI libraries are out there? I haven't heard of one. Only bindings to GTK/Qt. With all that said, I will be the first to jump the wagon. If I ever get so lucky.
- prospero 18y ago
  If you have a small, well-scoped application, like your RSS daemon, C++ is going to be best of breed in most cases. Similarly, if performance is your absolute primary concern, there's nothing out there that can compete. For most desktop software, though, neither of these things are true. The design and scope of the application are constantly changing, and mostly it just sits there. I write desktop software for a living, including a lot of CPU-intensive graphics stuff, and I'm infinitely grateful that I work in C# rather than C++. It makes me many times more productive, makes my work conceptually cleaner, and makes me a happier person all round. There's a memory cost, to be sure, but it's acceptable, and 90% of the clock cycles are spent in C libraries no matter what, so I don't see much of a downside. My background's in 3D graphics and computational geometry. I've always enjoyed working in C++ on computationally intensive problems, and reducing a problem to its cleanest, fastest implementation. But I think that in the real world, 99% of the time, what really matters are the features, and that the widespread fascination with efficiency is mostly just techno-fetishism.
  - kingkongrevenge 18y ago
    > 90% of the clock cycles are spent in C libraries no matter what, so I don't see much of a downside Which of course raises the question: why C#/Java instead of C++ in conjunction with something like perl or python?
    - prospero 18y ago
      I write Windows applications. C# has Win32 bindings that are vastly superior to anything else out there. There are tools designed to let me leverage these capabilities that are much more polished than the comparable tools for Python, Ruby, or anything else. C# isn't the best language out there, and certainly not the most elegant, but it's been carefully designed by some very smart people, and it shows. At the end of the day, for what I do, it's the best tool available.
      - kingkongrevenge 18y ago

scott_s 18y ago

Electric cars don't have combustion engines, which kills your analogy. Although maybe it doesn't, since a language without pointers is valid for non-systems programming.

alecco 18y ago

Java will never, ever replace c++ Of course not. Because there will always be a need for stuff that "really compiles" rather than "compiles with respect to the JVM" for both performance, and reliability issues. Compile-time optimizations are great and GC kills caches and locality, but there are run-time optimizations too to balance that argument. In my personal opinion, Java is a fad for children. However, that may be a bit harsh. Yes, too harsh and not rational. I dislike languages that imposed themselves by hundreds of millions of advertisement and lobbying instead of having programmers freely choose. <the car and teenagers rant> Sorry, no. The equivalent of the teenagers in programming actually dislike Java and are into more dynamic languages, like Python, Ruby, and even Javascript. not as "easy to program" It is amazing how easier it is nowadays to program in C++ with the latest template libraries (STL and Boost.) <the pointer rant> C++ is distancing itself from the low level C-style pointers (well, assembly-style for the purists.) You need them less now. It is kind of tricky to avoid leaks but if you memorize a dozen patterns you are safe.

nostrademons 18y ago

The same was said about assembly when C was first being used professionally for microcomputer development. C was too slow, it didn't give the programmer enough control, how can you possibly get stuff done without having full access to the computer's registers, what if you wanted to use processor-specific instructions, etc? People got over it. Many of the complaints are actually true - there are some domains where you still need to use assembly. But people figure they'll just use C for the main program and toss the assembly stuff in special subroutines in the arch/ subdirectory, and forget about it for the 99% of the time it doesn't matter.

alecco 18y ago
And the ironic part is your programming language of choice is coded in C and uses libraries with optimizations in assembly. When all you know is the hammer... This saying applies to both extremes, be it a dynamic language or a low level language. I try to use the best tool for the job, from my knowledge chest. That's why it's important to learn several languages.