4 ms·

Summarising the content: about 9:10 "virtual machines and garbage collection which when java first appeared were still ridiculous concepts" So I'm listening t

by harry8 12y ago

Summarising the content: about 9:10 "virtual machines and garbage collection which when java first appeared were still ridiculous concepts" So I'm listening to a guy's thoughts on programming languages who apparently never heard of lisp and is seemingly unaware of Guy Steele. "Our time is much better spent using a high level language..." Which is a sweepingly generalisation for which the exceptions, nuances and caveats are very clear to most reading Hacker News. I'm stopping now. That's 10 minutes of my life I'm not getting back. If someone thinks this promotes scala please think again, it probably has the opposite effect. If someone was kind enough to point out where the non-ridiculous content actually starts and provide some summary of why it might be worth anyone's time I'd have another look but I think I'll be looking for thoughts on scala elsewhere. Signal to noise far too low for me here. YMMV. As an aside, promoting a wider popularity for a skill set you already have is usually a good idea professionally. Ask any Perl expert. This is probably has something to do with the vitriol in the "programming language wars." It's nothing new, Dick Gabriel described C as "a virus." Many C++ promoters hate on C reflexively even when they're right. Many Java's hate on C++, Pythonistas on Perl, Haskell on Scala etc etc. Choose life.

brandonmenc 12y ago
> "virtual machines and garbage collection which when java first appeared were still ridiculous concepts" So I'm listening to a guy's thoughts on programming languages who apparently never heard of lisp and is seemingly unaware of Guy Steele. He clearly states that they were considered ridiculous because of their (perceived) performance - he didn't say people doubted their existence.
- harry8 12y ago
  They weren't considered such by anyone with any expertise. If he has some he should have said "Falsely considered ..." Or people might think less of his own analysis. People might be wrong to think so due to poor communication on his part..?
  - zak_mc_kracken 12y ago
    Java was notoriously dog slow way into the early 2000s, when the JIT and Hotspot appeared. Before that, criticism about the JVM's performances were completely justified.
    - harry8 12y ago
      Java was not the first, he's touting Java as the first. It wasn't. while you're saying java wasn't even that, it was actually slow as. So we're really not disagreeing here.
      - brandonmenc 12y ago
        > Java was not the first, he's touting Java as the first. He did not say this. You are imagining it. Re-watch the video if you don't believe me. You're getting tripped up by the fact that he's talking about popular languages, not languages in general. Java was the first time most of the people who only ever did their work in C and C++ encountered virtual machines and garbage collection.
        lispm 12y ago
        Garbage Collection and Virtual Machines are unrelated concepts. UCSD Pascal (which was widely known in the 80s) had a virtual machine, but no GC. Maclisp had GC, but no virtual machine.
      - harry8 12y ago
        From my comment that started this thread: about 9:10 "virtual machines and garbage collection which when java first appeared were still ridiculous concepts" Well absolutely, yeah, that's exactly what he did say. Word for word. In direct quotes. With a timestamp so you can go and listen to those exact words. Spelling it out there were multiple implementations of Lisp with garbage collection that were described by many at the time and afterward as successful and efficient. Guy Steele was on the Java design committee. Yes. No really he was. Previously, among other things he'd done this: http://library.readscheme.org/page1.html http://library.readscheme.org/page1.html Now if Mr Eckel just did a bad job in the first 10 minutes but improved and so I was hasty, ok, make that case - I specifically asked about that. If my direct quote is somehow wrong because of context and I missed it, please provide the quote in the wider context. But let's not make this a language wars style "Nyer nyer you're wrong because I said. C is a virus. Perl is line noise any perceived criticism of my favourite tech is evil" or whatever. Choose life. If tech is good make its case. This is someone watching something and responding on the front page of HN because they're interested seems like quite a weird reaction to me - others mentioned things about the "scala community" elsewhere in these comments. Maybe this is another example that helps someone's case?
TylerE 12y ago
It's Bruce Eckel. He's selling whatever's flavor of the month. The guy switches languages more often than some people chance socks.
- kev6168 12y ago
  Really? I don't think he has been constantly chasing the hot thingy in the past 10 years, stuff like Ruby/Rails, Coffeescript, Clojure, Kotlin, Node, Typescript, F#, Go, Rust, Nim, Elixir, Meteor ...
  - TylerE 12y ago
    He was C++, then Java, then he was C++ again then he was Python... Then he wrote about Flex, and now Scala...
    - kev6168 12y ago
      I remember reading his blog [0] on Scala 4 years ago, it might be the flavor of the month at that time. [0] http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=328540 http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=328540
    - Confusion 12y ago
      God forbid someone sees benefit in a variety of technologies and writes about each of them, sometimes revisiting earlier opinions.
    - weego 12y ago
      Because the people we really want to hear from are career-long zealots that never cross-learn?
  - zak_mc_kracken 12y ago
    His livelihood is about presenting at conferences and writing books. It's basically his job to dig up new technologies and fake excitement about them. Without that, he's out of a job.
- 12y ago
coldtea 12y ago
>"virtual machines and garbage collection which when java first appeared were still ridiculous concepts" So I'm listening to a guy's thoughts on programming languages who apparently never heard of lisp and is seemingly unaware of Guy Steele. No, you're listening to a guy that has met Guy Steele personally several times and knew about him and Scheme (maybe even before you were born, if you're 20-something), that is making a specific point from a SPECIFIC context (of the enterprise IT at large). When Java appeared, a VM and GC was laughed at in the huge majority of programming jobs, both for "shrink wrapped" software (where C++ still trumps all to this day) and for enterprise development. Neither Lisp, nor Scheme or Smalltalk or any VM lanuage had made any great inroads to those areas at the time, so from the context of the software houses/enterprise IT industry it just as if GC and VMs didn't exist at all...
VaidasC 12y ago
Sorry, but in my opinion, this kind of attitude in software development community is the main reason why we are in useless flame-wars all the time as an industry. So common pattern: pick something that is totally and utterly irrelevant in regards to main message and dismiss the whole thing so arrogantly. In my mind this is the root of many problems in our industry and world overall. Big discussion regarding ideas are just not possible, because so many considers The Message as just a combination of words/arguments in isolation, but it is not, it is so much more!

by harry8 12y ago

brandonmenc 12y ago

> "virtual machines and garbage collection which when java first appeared were still ridiculous concepts" So I'm listening to a guy's thoughts on programming languages who apparently never heard of lisp and is seemingly unaware of Guy Steele. He clearly states that they were considered ridiculous because of their (perceived) performance - he didn't say people doubted their existence.

harry8 12y ago
They weren't considered such by anyone with any expertise. If he has some he should have said "Falsely considered ..." Or people might think less of his own analysis. People might be wrong to think so due to poor communication on his part..?
- zak_mc_kracken 12y ago
  Java was notoriously dog slow way into the early 2000s, when the JIT and Hotspot appeared. Before that, criticism about the JVM's performances were completely justified.
  - harry8 12y ago
    Java was not the first, he's touting Java as the first. It wasn't. while you're saying java wasn't even that, it was actually slow as. So we're really not disagreeing here.
    - brandonmenc 12y ago
      > Java was not the first, he's touting Java as the first. He did not say this. You are imagining it. Re-watch the video if you don't believe me. You're getting tripped up by the fact that he's talking about popular languages, not languages in general. Java was the first time most of the people who only ever did their work in C and C++ encountered virtual machines and garbage collection.
      - lispm 12y ago
        Garbage Collection and Virtual Machines are unrelated concepts. UCSD Pascal (which was widely known in the 80s) had a virtual machine, but no GC. Maclisp had GC, but no virtual machine.
    - harry8 12y ago
      From my comment that started this thread: about 9:10 "virtual machines and garbage collection which when java first appeared were still ridiculous concepts" Well absolutely, yeah, that's exactly what he did say. Word for word. In direct quotes. With a timestamp so you can go and listen to those exact words. Spelling it out there were multiple implementations of Lisp with garbage collection that were described by many at the time and afterward as successful and efficient. Guy Steele was on the Java design committee. Yes. No really he was. Previously, among other things he'd done this: http://library.readscheme.org/page1.html http://library.readscheme.org/page1.html Now if Mr Eckel just did a bad job in the first 10 minutes but improved and so I was hasty, ok, make that case - I specifically asked about that. If my direct quote is somehow wrong because of context and I missed it, please provide the quote in the wider context. But let's not make this a language wars style "Nyer nyer you're wrong because I said. C is a virus. Perl is line noise any perceived criticism of my favourite tech is evil" or whatever. Choose life. If tech is good make its case. This is someone watching something and responding on the front page of HN because they're interested seems like quite a weird reaction to me - others mentioned things about the "scala community" elsewhere in these comments. Maybe this is another example that helps someone's case?

TylerE 12y ago

It's Bruce Eckel. He's selling whatever's flavor of the month. The guy switches languages more often than some people chance socks.

kev6168 12y ago
Really? I don't think he has been constantly chasing the hot thingy in the past 10 years, stuff like Ruby/Rails, Coffeescript, Clojure, Kotlin, Node, Typescript, F#, Go, Rust, Nim, Elixir, Meteor ...
- TylerE 12y ago
  He was C++, then Java, then he was C++ again then he was Python... Then he wrote about Flex, and now Scala...
  - kev6168 12y ago
    I remember reading his blog [0] on Scala 4 years ago, it might be the flavor of the month at that time. [0] http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=328540 http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=328540
  - Confusion 12y ago
    God forbid someone sees benefit in a variety of technologies and writes about each of them, sometimes revisiting earlier opinions.
  - weego 12y ago
    Because the people we really want to hear from are career-long zealots that never cross-learn?
- zak_mc_kracken 12y ago
  His livelihood is about presenting at conferences and writing books. It's basically his job to dig up new technologies and fake excitement about them. Without that, he's out of a job.
12y ago

coldtea 12y ago

>"virtual machines and garbage collection which when java first appeared were still ridiculous concepts" So I'm listening to a guy's thoughts on programming languages who apparently never heard of lisp and is seemingly unaware of Guy Steele. No, you're listening to a guy that has met Guy Steele personally several times and knew about him and Scheme (maybe even before you were born, if you're 20-something), that is making a specific point from a SPECIFIC context (of the enterprise IT at large). When Java appeared, a VM and GC was laughed at in the huge majority of programming jobs, both for "shrink wrapped" software (where C++ still trumps all to this day) and for enterprise development. Neither Lisp, nor Scheme or Smalltalk or any VM lanuage had made any great inroads to those areas at the time, so from the context of the software houses/enterprise IT industry it just as if GC and VMs didn't exist at all...

VaidasC 12y ago

Sorry, but in my opinion, this kind of attitude in software development community is the main reason why we are in useless flame-wars all the time as an industry. So common pattern: pick something that is totally and utterly irrelevant in regards to main message and dismiss the whole thing so arrogantly. In my mind this is the root of many problems in our industry and world overall. Big discussion regarding ideas are just not possible, because so many considers The Message as just a combination of words/arguments in isolation, but it is not, it is so much more!