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> "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 la

> "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?
      - brandonmenc 12y ago
        I'm going to assume English is not your first language, because there is no other explanation as to why you can't understand what he's saying. He is clearly saying that the typical programmer at the time thought virtual machines and garbage collection were ridiculous because of their perceived lack of efficiency. He never says he agrees with that assessment. He is simply demonstrating what the common arguments were against Java at the time, and if you were programming back then you know he's correct - plenty of programmers were not convinced, and they were wrong. > But let's not make this a language wars style "Nyer nyer you're wrong because I said. C is a virus. This is not a language war. Lisp was my language of choice fifteen years ago, and is still one of my favorites.
        harry8 12y ago
        I don't know why I'm bothering with this. Forlorn hope of communication? Belief that HN can be worthy? Ridiculous idealism? Character flaw? Starting 8:57 note this is direct quote, word for word accurate so that all the surrounding context is right there. "Then java comes along and yes, java had a lot of, um, questionable decisions, but ah, some of the things that were brought along were the idea of virtual machines and garbage collection which when java first appeared were still ridiculous concepts that could never be efficient enough. And there was... And you can see the pattern of argument there's "Oh well it will never be efficient enough." And of course now we've had enough time to not really think about the efficiency of virtual machines and garbage collection it's basically proven - we've had faster and faster hardware and we realize our time is much better spent in um using a higher level language than it is chasing some of the bugs that happen without this kind of stuff." --Bruce Eckel So there it is. Transcribed and checked. I'm not going mad (or at least this isn't further evidence of it). My assessment in the wider context of the surrounding quote looks completely accurate. Sweeping, nuance free generalization and ignorance of things that existed, commercially prior to Java. You may look at it squarely and decide to revisit your comments. I think he really does agree with the comments he is making himself while he's making them. I have no idea why you're understanding something else that he isn't saying and putting words in his mouth that aren't there. If he meant something different to what he said, ok, he should have said something different to communicate the different thing, yeah? It doesn't usually pay to make assumptions based on no evidence so I'm not making any. Revisiting this whole thread it looks about as pointless as the time dropped on the video. I shouldn't tar scala with that brush though, it may not be representative of either the language or its community.
- harry8 12y ago
  Anyone downvoting this might do better to explain why lisp garbage collection sucked and why so many people claimed it didn't before java was thought of. Downvoting rather than replying is lame. This is a respectful comment. Note also I deliberately used direct quotes. If they are unfair please find something that isn't vague to demonstrate that. Edit: Noting more downvotes received and no more replies. Is this language wars? Do you thin this is the scala community? The only reason I would have tried the video and posted here is due to an interest in scala and I've really tried to be fair in my responses. No matter, life is too short to waste more time on it.
  - acjohnson55 12y ago
    As someone who started programming as a teenager in the 90s, Lisp wasn't on my radar until the mid-2000s. I think you have to acknowledge that regardless of what the Lisp/academic scene had accomplished, these advances simply hadn't made it to mainstream development. To me, there's truth in the talk, because it mirrors what I experienced, although I know actual history to be different in the broadest sense. I know now about Scheme, Self, Smalltalk, etc, but it's clear they simply weren't exerting that much influence on early web developers or desktop developers of the time. I don't know why you're getting downvoted, but I do think people are disagreeing with you simply because their experience is like mine. These concepts weren't truly novel when they went mainstream in the 2000s, but they were new to many.
    - harry8 12y ago
      That's entirely reasonable. But we're talking about someone who is being held up as an expert not knowing better. I'm told (I wasn't there either) that Lisp had considerable traction in commercial implementations in the enterprise before java was thought of. Dick Gabriel says so, he was there. So does Jamie Zawiniski who was also there and there are a few others so I think on the balance of probability that it's probably so. But yeah, I wasn't there. Guy Steele is a genuine programming language expert who designed Scheme with Gerry Sussman, wrote the standard common lisp texts, the C reference manual and so on. "We were not out to win over the Lisp programmers; we were after the C++ programmers. We managed to drag a lot of them about halfway to Lisp." - Guy Steele, Java spec co-author http://www.paulgraham.com/quotes.html http://www.paulgraham.com/quotes.html I'm not claiming expertise on Java, VMs, Lisp and programming languages in general and don't pretend to be. I've picked up that much but Mr Eckel hasn't. So does that fact that he has missed such a basic count for the expertise of this presentation on programming languages or against it? But maybe Mr Eckel has a lot friends who like to downvote any criticism of his presentation however reasoned and respectful? Maybe he's a lovely guy and mostly does a lot better? edit: minor spelling & grammar

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?
    - brandonmenc 12y ago
      I'm going to assume English is not your first language, because there is no other explanation as to why you can't understand what he's saying. He is clearly saying that the typical programmer at the time thought virtual machines and garbage collection were ridiculous because of their perceived lack of efficiency. He never says he agrees with that assessment. He is simply demonstrating what the common arguments were against Java at the time, and if you were programming back then you know he's correct - plenty of programmers were not convinced, and they were wrong. > But let's not make this a language wars style "Nyer nyer you're wrong because I said. C is a virus. This is not a language war. Lisp was my language of choice fifteen years ago, and is still one of my favorites.
      - harry8 12y ago
        I don't know why I'm bothering with this. Forlorn hope of communication? Belief that HN can be worthy? Ridiculous idealism? Character flaw? Starting 8:57 note this is direct quote, word for word accurate so that all the surrounding context is right there. "Then java comes along and yes, java had a lot of, um, questionable decisions, but ah, some of the things that were brought along were the idea of virtual machines and garbage collection which when java first appeared were still ridiculous concepts that could never be efficient enough. And there was... And you can see the pattern of argument there's "Oh well it will never be efficient enough." And of course now we've had enough time to not really think about the efficiency of virtual machines and garbage collection it's basically proven - we've had faster and faster hardware and we realize our time is much better spent in um using a higher level language than it is chasing some of the bugs that happen without this kind of stuff." --Bruce Eckel So there it is. Transcribed and checked. I'm not going mad (or at least this isn't further evidence of it). My assessment in the wider context of the surrounding quote looks completely accurate. Sweeping, nuance free generalization and ignorance of things that existed, commercially prior to Java. You may look at it squarely and decide to revisit your comments. I think he really does agree with the comments he is making himself while he's making them. I have no idea why you're understanding something else that he isn't saying and putting words in his mouth that aren't there. If he meant something different to what he said, ok, he should have said something different to communicate the different thing, yeah? It doesn't usually pay to make assumptions based on no evidence so I'm not making any. Revisiting this whole thread it looks about as pointless as the time dropped on the video. I shouldn't tar scala with that brush though, it may not be representative of either the language or its community.
harry8 12y ago
Anyone downvoting this might do better to explain why lisp garbage collection sucked and why so many people claimed it didn't before java was thought of. Downvoting rather than replying is lame. This is a respectful comment. Note also I deliberately used direct quotes. If they are unfair please find something that isn't vague to demonstrate that. Edit: Noting more downvotes received and no more replies. Is this language wars? Do you thin this is the scala community? The only reason I would have tried the video and posted here is due to an interest in scala and I've really tried to be fair in my responses. No matter, life is too short to waste more time on it.
- acjohnson55 12y ago
  As someone who started programming as a teenager in the 90s, Lisp wasn't on my radar until the mid-2000s. I think you have to acknowledge that regardless of what the Lisp/academic scene had accomplished, these advances simply hadn't made it to mainstream development. To me, there's truth in the talk, because it mirrors what I experienced, although I know actual history to be different in the broadest sense. I know now about Scheme, Self, Smalltalk, etc, but it's clear they simply weren't exerting that much influence on early web developers or desktop developers of the time. I don't know why you're getting downvoted, but I do think people are disagreeing with you simply because their experience is like mine. These concepts weren't truly novel when they went mainstream in the 2000s, but they were new to many.
  - harry8 12y ago
    That's entirely reasonable. But we're talking about someone who is being held up as an expert not knowing better. I'm told (I wasn't there either) that Lisp had considerable traction in commercial implementations in the enterprise before java was thought of. Dick Gabriel says so, he was there. So does Jamie Zawiniski who was also there and there are a few others so I think on the balance of probability that it's probably so. But yeah, I wasn't there. Guy Steele is a genuine programming language expert who designed Scheme with Gerry Sussman, wrote the standard common lisp texts, the C reference manual and so on. "We were not out to win over the Lisp programmers; we were after the C++ programmers. We managed to drag a lot of them about halfway to Lisp." - Guy Steele, Java spec co-author http://www.paulgraham.com/quotes.html http://www.paulgraham.com/quotes.html I'm not claiming expertise on Java, VMs, Lisp and programming languages in general and don't pretend to be. I've picked up that much but Mr Eckel hasn't. So does that fact that he has missed such a basic count for the expertise of this presentation on programming languages or against it? But maybe Mr Eckel has a lot friends who like to downvote any criticism of his presentation however reasoned and respectful? Maybe he's a lovely guy and mostly does a lot better? edit: minor spelling & grammar