5 ms·

Doesn't it take 10 lines to say "Hello World" in Java.

by vikram 19y ago

Tichy 19y ago
Depends on the formatting - you can write it in one line without any problems whatsoever.
tlrobinson 19y ago
You were probably exaggerating, but for reference: public class hello { public static void main(String args[]) { System.out.println("Hello World"); } } Also, I interviewed with a large company that shall remain nameless (probably not who you would expect), and one of the interviewers mentioned that their build system was a MILLION lines of Perl...
- vikram 19y ago
  Yes, I am exaggerating. I would call this three lines. As there are 3 constructs here. A million lines of Perl, was maintaining that part of the job description?
  - tlrobinson 19y ago
    Yes, the position was for the build team, so I assume maintaining that beast was part of the job.
- Kaizyn 19y ago
  Must be HP then?
cstejerean 19y ago
Why is that always the first point of comparison? Why does it matter how much shorter hello, world is in Lisp (or Python, Ruby, etc) vs Java?
- Zak 19y ago
  Hello world shows how much boilerplate is required before you can print a message to stdout. It's one of several important factors for any language you might use for quick and dirty throwaway programs. You want it to be two tokens only - the name of the print function and the string to be printed.
  - cstejerean 19y ago
    ah, quick and dirty throw away programs. Personally I think writing output to the console should be harder (but I'll save that for later). I'd like to see more sane comparisons, like: making a TCP connection, making a web request, encrypting and decrypting a string, computing base64, md5, etc. And in Python, print "hello, world" is bad form. It would be proper to write (news.YC is omitting some newlines below) def main(): print "hello, world" if __name__ == "__main__": main()
    - vikram 19y ago
      well we don't have to do that. Though this isn't the same test as what you propose. This guy has compared many different web frameworks. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6297126166376226181 http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6297126166376226181 I think the reason the LOC count is significant is because it means that there is less code for one to look through to figure out what is going on. Fewer lines imply that the solution has high level abstractions. Each one of the examples you mentioned is one construct in lisp (if you use libraries).
      - boucher 19y ago
        I think thats a bit of a fallacy (and I also think this guys video is a bit of a waste of time...). More abstractions can be nice, but don't mistake it for less code. Its still code somewhere, and that can lead to much more subtle and hard to find problems if you don't understand exactly what's going on. Of course, some environments are bigger culprits than others, but its something to keep in mind.
      - 19y ago

Doesn't it take 10 lines to say "Hello World" in Java.

by vikram 19y ago

Doesn't it take 10 lines to say "Hello World" in Java.

Tichy 19y ago

Depends on the formatting - you can write it in one line without any problems whatsoever.

tlrobinson 19y ago

You were probably exaggerating, but for reference: public class hello { public static void main(String args[]) { System.out.println("Hello World"); } } Also, I interviewed with a large company that shall remain nameless (probably not who you would expect), and one of the interviewers mentioned that their build system was a MILLION lines of Perl...

vikram 19y ago
Yes, I am exaggerating. I would call this three lines. As there are 3 constructs here. A million lines of Perl, was maintaining that part of the job description?
- tlrobinson 19y ago
  Yes, the position was for the build team, so I assume maintaining that beast was part of the job.
Kaizyn 19y ago
Must be HP then?

cstejerean 19y ago

Why is that always the first point of comparison? Why does it matter how much shorter hello, world is in Lisp (or Python, Ruby, etc) vs Java?

Zak 19y ago
Hello world shows how much boilerplate is required before you can print a message to stdout. It's one of several important factors for any language you might use for quick and dirty throwaway programs. You want it to be two tokens only - the name of the print function and the string to be printed.
- cstejerean 19y ago
  ah, quick and dirty throw away programs. Personally I think writing output to the console should be harder (but I'll save that for later). I'd like to see more sane comparisons, like: making a TCP connection, making a web request, encrypting and decrypting a string, computing base64, md5, etc. And in Python, print "hello, world" is bad form. It would be proper to write (news.YC is omitting some newlines below) def main(): print "hello, world" if __name__ == "__main__": main()
  - vikram 19y ago
    well we don't have to do that. Though this isn't the same test as what you propose. This guy has compared many different web frameworks. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6297126166376226181 http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6297126166376226181 I think the reason the LOC count is significant is because it means that there is less code for one to look through to figure out what is going on. Fewer lines imply that the solution has high level abstractions. Each one of the examples you mentioned is one construct in lisp (if you use libraries).
    - boucher 19y ago
      I think thats a bit of a fallacy (and I also think this guys video is a bit of a waste of time...). More abstractions can be nice, but don't mistake it for less code. Its still code somewhere, and that can lead to much more subtle and hard to find problems if you don't understand exactly what's going on. Of course, some environments are bigger culprits than others, but its something to keep in mind.
    - 19y ago