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As Java was mentioned. The Java API is very nice, but there is a layer missing on top. The Java API was written with a early 90s mindset and got most users afte

As Java was mentioned. The Java API is very nice, but there is a layer missing on top. The Java API was written with a early 90s mindset and got most users after 2000. This goes for most Java APIs. IO, Swing, ... The idea is to have LEGO building blocks (BufferedReader) you can plug together. But you need to plug them together all the time. The missing layer e.g. is IO.readIntoString(file). Apache IOUtils, StringUtils etc. fill in this layer for many Java APIs. The one API that is not powerful enough is Collection. There you have the top layer without the LEGO building blocks. Compare this to the Scala collection API which has the top layers and the building blocks. For a good API you need both, building blocks to tailer to your specific need (20% of the time) and an easy top layer (80%) to prevent writing the same stuff all the time.

dm3 14y ago
To be fair, they have mostly fixed the IO API with Java 7 (NIO2). This covers various Files# helpers as well as a proper Path abstraction.
- Uchikoma 14y ago
  15 (?) years late ;-)
  - RyanZAG 14y ago
    Why does that matter? If version 1 is bad, we should never use any newer versions because version 1 was bad? The iPhone didn't support 3g in the first version, so we shouldn't use current iPhones?
    - icebraining 14y ago
      In some ways, yes. Plenty of people moved to other languages because of those handicaps, and they have no good reason to come back.
      - RyanZAG 14y ago
        You make it sound like it's some kind of popularity contest, where people not choosing the language means it 'loses'. I disagree pretty heavily there - your hammer doesn't lose if you use your saw. The language's user loses if he is such a fanboy of hammers he refuses to use the saw. If Java improves to become the best tool (not saying it has/will), then choosing not use use Java because you 'moved on', is a failure on your part, not the tool.
        icebraining 14y ago
        The thing with analogies is that you have to know when they break down. Sure the language loses. An hammer is self-sufficient; a language needs libraries, community support, job/project candidates that can replace an absent developer, etc. Do you think having NumPy isn't a win for Python? Of course, if the language is sufficiently better than the others, maybe you're willing to write your own e.g. Websockets library to use it. But there's still a large handicap there. For example, Plan9 is in many ways a better OS than GNU/Linux. But I still use the latter, because I rather have the support and thousands of binary packages that a larger community brings.

dm3 14y ago

To be fair, they have mostly fixed the IO API with Java 7 (NIO2). This covers various Files# helpers as well as a proper Path abstraction.

Uchikoma 14y ago
15 (?) years late ;-)
- RyanZAG 14y ago
  Why does that matter? If version 1 is bad, we should never use any newer versions because version 1 was bad? The iPhone didn't support 3g in the first version, so we shouldn't use current iPhones?
  - icebraining 14y ago
    In some ways, yes. Plenty of people moved to other languages because of those handicaps, and they have no good reason to come back.
    - RyanZAG 14y ago
      You make it sound like it's some kind of popularity contest, where people not choosing the language means it 'loses'. I disagree pretty heavily there - your hammer doesn't lose if you use your saw. The language's user loses if he is such a fanboy of hammers he refuses to use the saw. If Java improves to become the best tool (not saying it has/will), then choosing not use use Java because you 'moved on', is a failure on your part, not the tool.
      - icebraining 14y ago
        The thing with analogies is that you have to know when they break down. Sure the language loses. An hammer is self-sufficient; a language needs libraries, community support, job/project candidates that can replace an absent developer, etc. Do you think having NumPy isn't a win for Python? Of course, if the language is sufficiently better than the others, maybe you're willing to write your own e.g. Websockets library to use it. But there's still a large handicap there. For example, Plan9 is in many ways a better OS than GNU/Linux. But I still use the latter, because I rather have the support and thousands of binary packages that a larger community brings.