Java

[Paul Prescod <address@hidden>]

Dan Weinreb wrote:
> 
>...
> 
> It seems to me that there are a lot of people on this list who are
> very eager to criticize Java.  (Java is heavyweight, and thus Java is
> bad.)  Perhaps it is largely because Java has gotten so widespread and
> popular that it invites so much resentment.  

Java is increasingly resented for a variety of reasons:

 1. It is widespread (Curl is proprietary but I'm never forced to
program in it!)
 2. It hasn't earned its place fairly the way other languages have to 
 3. Sun refuses to standarize or open source it
 4. It is needlessly painful:

Why doesn't Java have a glob module?[1] Why does it have to use
"properties" instead of standard environment variables? [2] Why doesn't
it have a concept of "current directory". [3] Why can't I do a string
replace with an input string and an output string instead of characters?
[4]

In general, why is programmer convenience (aka "productivity") such a
low priority?

 5. What is "100% Java"? Linguistic cleansing?

 Paul Prescod

[1]
http://www.mail-archive.com/oro-user@jakarta.apache.org/msg00009.html
[2]
http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/javaqa/2001-07/01-qa-0706-env.html
[3] http://www.devx.com/free/tips/tipview.asp?content_id=2533
[4] http://java.sun.com/products/jdk/1.1/docs/api/java.lang.String.html