4 ms·

Only half-joking: maybe Java was a mistake. I feel like so much was lost in programming language development because of OOP...

exasperaited 11mo ago
Java is most of why we have a proliferation of VM-based languages and a big part of why WASM looks the way it does (though as I understand it, WASM is the shape it is in some measure because it rejects JVM design-for-the-language quirks). I would also not blame Java for the worst of OO, all of that would have happened without it. There were so many OO culture languages pretending to that throne. Java got there first because of the aforementioned VM advantage, but the core concepts are things academia was offering and the industry wanted in non-Ada languages. I would say Java also had a materially strong impact on the desire for server, database and client hardware agnosticism. Some of this is positive reinforcement: Java demonstrates that it's better if you don't have to worry about what brand your server is, and JDBC arguably perfected ODBC. Some of it is negative: a lot of the move to richer client experiences in the browser has to do with trying to remove client-side Java as a dependency, because it failed. It's not the only bridged dependency we removed, of course: Flash is equally important as a negative.
- lmm 11mo ago
  > I would also not blame Java for the worst of OO, all of that would have happened without it. There were so many OO culture languages pretending to that throne. Java got there first because of the aforementioned VM advantage, but the core concepts are things academia was offering and the industry wanted in non-Ada languages. Really? Were there other major contenders that went as far as the public class MyApp { public static void main( nonsense?
bluGill 11mo ago
OOP is very useful/powerful, don't throw the good parts out. Java messed up by deciding everything must be an object when there are many other useful way to program. (you can also argue that smalltalk had a better object model, but even then all objects isn't a good thing). Functional programing is very powerful and a good solution to some problems. Procedural programing is very powerful and a good solution to some problems. You can do both in Java - but you have to wrap everything in an object anyway despite the object not adding any value.
- kragen 11mo ago
  Java was derived from C++, Smalltalk, and arguably Cedar, and one of its biggest differences from C++ and Smalltalk is that in Java things like integers, characters, and booleans aren't objects, as they are in C++ and Smalltalk. (Cedar didn't have objects.)
  - bluGill 11mo ago
    Right. Everything a user can do is object, but there are a few non-object built ins. (they are not objects in C++ either, but C++ doesn't make everything you write be an object)
    - kragen 11mo ago
      In C++ integers and characters are objects. See https://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/language/objects.html https://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/language/objects.html, for example, which explicitly mentions "unsigned char objects", "a bit-field object", "objects of type char", etc.
      - dpark 11mo ago
        I feel this is a case of using the same word to mean something different. C++ “object” here seems to mean something more akin to “can be allocated and stuffed into an array” than a Smalltalk-type object. i.e. C++ primitive types are defined to be objects but do not fit into a traditional object-oriented definition of “object”.
        kragen 11mo ago
        Yes, many people believe that C++ isn't really "object-oriented", including famously Alan Kay, the inventor of the term. Nevertheless, that is the definition of "object" in C++, and Java is based on C++, Smalltalk, and Cedar, and makes an "object"/"primitive" distinction that C++, Smalltalk, and Cedar do not, so "Java [did something] by deciding everything must be an object" is exactly backwards.

exasperaited 11mo ago

Java is most of why we have a proliferation of VM-based languages and a big part of why WASM looks the way it does (though as I understand it, WASM is the shape it is in some measure because it rejects JVM design-for-the-language quirks). I would also not blame Java for the worst of OO, all of that would have happened without it. There were so many OO culture languages pretending to that throne. Java got there first because of the aforementioned VM advantage, but the core concepts are things academia was offering and the industry wanted in non-Ada languages. I would say Java also had a materially strong impact on the desire for server, database and client hardware agnosticism. Some of this is positive reinforcement: Java demonstrates that it's better if you don't have to worry about what brand your server is, and JDBC arguably perfected ODBC. Some of it is negative: a lot of the move to richer client experiences in the browser has to do with trying to remove client-side Java as a dependency, because it failed. It's not the only bridged dependency we removed, of course: Flash is equally important as a negative.

lmm 11mo ago
> I would also not blame Java for the worst of OO, all of that would have happened without it. There were so many OO culture languages pretending to that throne. Java got there first because of the aforementioned VM advantage, but the core concepts are things academia was offering and the industry wanted in non-Ada languages. Really? Were there other major contenders that went as far as the public class MyApp { public static void main( nonsense?

bluGill 11mo ago

OOP is very useful/powerful, don't throw the good parts out. Java messed up by deciding everything must be an object when there are many other useful way to program. (you can also argue that smalltalk had a better object model, but even then all objects isn't a good thing). Functional programing is very powerful and a good solution to some problems. Procedural programing is very powerful and a good solution to some problems. You can do both in Java - but you have to wrap everything in an object anyway despite the object not adding any value.

kragen 11mo ago
Java was derived from C++, Smalltalk, and arguably Cedar, and one of its biggest differences from C++ and Smalltalk is that in Java things like integers, characters, and booleans aren't objects, as they are in C++ and Smalltalk. (Cedar didn't have objects.)
- bluGill 11mo ago
  Right. Everything a user can do is object, but there are a few non-object built ins. (they are not objects in C++ either, but C++ doesn't make everything you write be an object)
  - kragen 11mo ago
    In C++ integers and characters are objects. See https://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/language/objects.html https://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/language/objects.html, for example, which explicitly mentions "unsigned char objects", "a bit-field object", "objects of type char", etc.
    - dpark 11mo ago
      I feel this is a case of using the same word to mean something different. C++ “object” here seems to mean something more akin to “can be allocated and stuffed into an array” than a Smalltalk-type object. i.e. C++ primitive types are defined to be objects but do not fit into a traditional object-oriented definition of “object”.
      - kragen 11mo ago
        Yes, many people believe that C++ isn't really "object-oriented", including famously Alan Kay, the inventor of the term. Nevertheless, that is the definition of "object" in C++, and Java is based on C++, Smalltalk, and Cedar, and makes an "object"/"primitive" distinction that C++, Smalltalk, and Cedar do not, so "Java [did something] by deciding everything must be an object" is exactly backwards.