Simplicity and Elegance versus Marketing and Hype...

Java got my attention in 1995 precisely because I liked its' simplicity and
elegance, which *does* count a lot in my book. I care more for a well
thought out and engineered language than the marketing hype, which usually
has the opposite effect of irritating me. The problem (benefit? depending on
point of view) of marketing is that it  *is* powerful in getting a
language/platform adopted by the masses and businesses. That helps build
momentum, making it ubiquitous (look at Windows, which I haven't used for
more than 8 years...). In the early days I was trying to convince skeptics
at the company I worked for to go down the Java route. Nowadays there is
seldom such a need (unless you work for a Microsoft-only shop).

When Java came along in the mid-nineties, it was a godsend for me. Having
programmed in C for a few years, on a product that needed to run on various
OS's (DOS, Windows 3.1, Windows NT, OS/2, various UNIX's, even Mainframes)
and interface with various databases and transport networks, I started
looking at alternative languages.

I took a long, hard look at C++ and didn't like what I saw. I spent more
brain CPU cycles learning and remembering language syntax than solving the
problem at hand.

Then I looked at Objective C, liked it a lot, and joined the sole
distributor of NeXTSTEP in South Africa in 1994. I loved the simplicity of
Objective C with its smalltalk-like additions and dynamic nature compared to
C++.

Then Java came along, and I took an instant liking to it - especially
grateful that I was able to wave goodbye to pointers and subsequent memory
leaks while concentrating on actually getting the job done - with the added
benefit of portability.

If Java had never been invented, then Sun might have continued down the path
of using Objective C, as they had intended to do during their collaboration
with Steve Jobs' NeXTSTEP (opened up as OPENSTEP). If it weren't for the
merger (acquisition) between Apple and NeXT, then Objective C would probably
have died along with NeXTSTEP. Fortunately, it lives on in the MacOS X Aqua
desktop, proving that the combination of native C with a thin, simple OO
layer is a better tool for building a modern desktop than Java ever was.

However, Objective C was a well-kept "secret" compared to the marketing
tsunami that swept Java onto our shores. Still, Java wasn't all hype and
marketing - behind the dancing dukes was a simple, clean language that
appealed to me, plus some core API libraries, which were mostly fine (the
AWT libraries were rushed to market).

I cut my teeth on JDK1.1, witnessing the addition (hack?) of inner classes
(so that the limit of one public class per file would not lead to a
proliferation of files for listener interface implementations, while
mangling class file names so that classloaders would still work without
change). I liked the scope and size of the language, and the API class
libraries were small enough for a beginner to get familiar with.

But with JDK1.2 it started down a slippery slope of API bloat. While the
language itself was kept pretty much the same, Swing was tacked onto AWT,
and then a humongous stack of enterprise API's, many of which I stayed well
clear of (I never bothered with EJB's and hope never to need to look at
them).

And then with Java 5 came the addition of new language syntax features, many
of which I don't care for, and some of which have subtle "gotchas" you have
to look out for. The Java that we have today is far removed from the Java
that grabbed my attention back in 1995. If I were to learn it from scratch
today, I would probably be wasting brain CPU cycles similar to the way I was
with C++ years ago. It is no longer a simple, elegant language.

When I started looking at Python, I liked it and was drawn to it in the same
way I was attracted to Objective C and Java years earlier. For example:
everything in Python is an object. There is no such thing as a primitive
type (eg: int) and the subsequent need for a corresponding "wrapper" class
(eg: Integer), and hence no need for autoboxing to be tacked on later to
"simplify" things. And that's just one small example of the simplicity and
elegance that appeals to me. There are many other things I like about
Python. I don't intend discussing them all here now - especially since I
don't use Python in my day job, and I haven't even looked at the new
features in 3.0.

Fritz mentioned Java's backward compatibility, and asked "Are there other
languages where the compromises have been better made?". That is a good and
relevant question. From what I've seen with Python, they aren't afraid to
introduce changes that introduce backwards incompatibility, but they do it
in a seemingly well-managed manner where you can import features from
"future" versions in advance so that you can start porting your applications
before the new features replace the old way of doing things. Since I don't
use Python in my day job, I cannot comment on how well it works in practice,
But I like the fact that they are prepared to cut out past mistakes and fix
things properly rather than introduce new features in order to work around
legacy warts.

Still, I think we all agree that for in-house enterprise applications,
nothing beats Java. I would not call Java terrible, ugly, or a "rubbish"
language, that succeeded only due to successful marketing. There is
(actually, was) a good language behind all the hype. If it were
terrible/ugly/rubbish it would not have succeeded. It has it's warts, and I
think it has grown too large - partly to maintain backward compatibility.

And I certainly would not label it along the same lines as COBOL, which I
was fortunate to never have needed to use in my day job, as I suspect I
would have found it mind-numbingly stultifying. Whereas COBOL is often
associated with stale, bureaucratic organizations, Java reaches beyond the
enterprise into more youthful, dynamic organzations. I'd bet you both Java
and Python are widely used in Google...

For building my career while using an acceptable language (in the sense that
I would want to use it daily), Java is a good choice. If I had financial
freedom, I would use Python more, and explore more esoteric languages out of
pure academic interest.

So, do developers ultimately choose elegance and simplicity over marketing
and hype? I hope so. As powerful as marketing is, the noise eventually
settles down and then the survival of a language comes down to it's
technical merits. I don't think Java will suffer the same demise that COBOL
has, and I hope that Python will triumph over the hype surrounding Ruby in
the long run...

Heinz is very knowledgeable about Java. I just think he is being critical of
his "old faithfull" while flirting with a younger model... Ruby perhaps?  ;)

And that is not a bad thing - being critical is healthy - especially if you
have the knowledge and experience to back it up, which I believe Heinz has.
I just think using terms like terrible/rubbish/ugly is easy and cheap. What
would be more interesting, and useful, is a technical critique of Java,
listing some of the warts and gotchas.

Meanwhile, I will carry on using Java, while I feel motivated to delve in a
bit more Python again, and perhaps look at Ruby just to see what the hype is
all about (in case I'm missing out on something).

Perhaps all languages seem simple and elegant during their early years, and
before they become mainstream, or during the early stages of learning it?
Maybe the act of becoming ubiquitous forges and shapes a language into a
larger beast then the original? Or perhaps one just becomes bored with the
same old, while being attracted to a new kid on the block... which Java was
in the mid-nineties.

I'm just glad that I learned Java while it was evolving. If I had to learn
it from scratch today I think it would be far more difficult. But don't let
that put you off, Johan (Mynhardt). You are very welcome in the Java
community, and, as you can see, you will likely hear both praise and
critique - but hopefully not slavish following by non-questioning sheep ;)
Religious fervor and ideology are dangerous and damaging to any language.

Johan.

On Mon, Jun 8, 2009 at 6:27 AM, Dr Heinz M. Kabutz <heinz@java...
> wrote:

>  Exactly, you don't choose Java because of its simplicity, elegance, nice
> style, etc. You choose it because of other things.  As a language, it's
> ugly, but I would not choose anything else for an enterprise app.
> Obviously.
>
> Regards
>
> Heinz
> --
> Dr Heinz M. Kabutz (PhD CompSci)
> Author of "The Java(tm) Specialists' Newsletter"
> Sun Java Championhttp://www.javaspecialists.eu
> Tel: +30 69 72 850 460
> Skype: kabutz
>
>
>
> Johan Steyn wrote:
>
> I wouldn't use Python if I required calculations at hardware speed. I'd do
> it in C myself.
>  That's why my "toolbox" contains 3 languages:
>
>  1. C (not C++) for low-level, native stuff.
> 2. Java for enterprise applications.
> 3. Python for scripting (and to stimulate and soothe the mind).
>
>  Anything else holds purely academic interest for me - a luxury I can
> seldom afford as much as I would love to re-discover some Lisp and explore
> Erlang.
>
>  If I were to judge a language purely on the merits of the language
> itself, Python is just so damn elegant... I miss it's terseness and
> simplicity when I code in Java.
>
>  But in terms of "getting the job done", my current toolbox suffices. I
> happen to spend most of my time doing enterprise applications, and for that
> nothing comes close to Java. I just don't care too much for the Java 5
> syntactic "features" - I can do without them and have been made aware of
> some nasty pitfalls that they have introduced.
>
>  Yet, if someone asked me now to develop an application that needs to
> interface with a database, parse some XML files, read-write data over a
> socket and present a user interface in either a standalone GUI or web
> application, and have it run on various Os's, then I wouldn't dream of doing
> it in anything other than Java.
>
>  So, when someone states that Java is a "terrible" language - take the
> comment with a condiment of your own choosing. I suspect that if presented
> with the task of completing an enterprise application in time and budget
> using language "X", then you'd likely hear cries of just how terrible
> language "X" is now that they are forced to use it, and how much they fondly
> miss their cup o' Java ;)
>
>  Johan.
>
> On Sat, Jun 6, 2009 at 11:28 PM, Noel Grandin <noelgrandin@gmai...>wrote:
>
>>
>> Python?
>>
>> That would the language that makes a hard requirement that you have a
>> C programmer on your team, because it can't do calculations at
>> anywhere close to hardware speeds.
>> The language run-time that requires manual interventions to prevent
>> memory leaks because it uses reference-counted GC?
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Jun 6, 2009 at 17:07, Johan Steyn<johan.steyn@gmai...> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> Fritz Meissner wrote:
>> >> > In that case I'd be fascinated to hear what isn't a terrible language
>> ?
>> >
>> > Python.
>> > I wouldn't say Java is terrible. It avoids many errors that are common
>> in
>> > C/C++ (where I started), but introduced other pitfalls - of which Heinz
>> > mentioned some.
>> > I wouldn't ever consider using .Net, and in my free time I (used to)
>> dabble
>> > in a bit of Python, which to my senses is just plain no-nonsense
>> > straightforward done right. I have no interest in Perl anymore, and I
>> > haven't looked at Ruby, which I think gained popularity on the back of
>> Rails
>> > rather than the language itself in it's own right.
>> > IMO, if you know some C for low-level, fast native apps, Java for
>> enterprise
>> > apps, and Python for scripting - with obviously some intersection among
>> > them, then you are pretty much sorted to tackle any programming task
>> without
>> > needing to know any other language.
>> > That said, I haven't looked at Lisp since 1992, but I don't see a need
>> for
>> > it other than stretching my mind - which is a good thing in it's own
>> right
>> > ;)
>> > Johan.
>> > >
>> >
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
> >
>

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