anthony lorelli
With No Definite Future And No Purpose Other Than To Prevail Somehow ...
[The Mermen, A Glorious Lethal Euphoria]

Monday, June 10, 2002

Java ennui Does it strike anyone else that Java, which once was an interesting new language that had the potential to change the world, has become deeply boring ? That our lovely little language has become completely and utterly disassociated from what's interesting and innovative in the computer industry? The positive spin that people put on this is that "Java is maturing as a platform" or "Once things get really useful, they stabilize" or "SUN's providing a computing layer so that other people can innovate; you're looking for innovation in the wrong places." To which all I can say is "Maybe." [William Grosso, Java: Redlining the Yawn-Meter] Java is primarily a victim of Sun's hype. As I learn more about the history of programming languages and see what can be accomplished (Lisp and Haskell both present substantially different models of what a programming language can be - even Python has a certain imagination to it that Java lacks), it becomes clear that Java is exactly what it was meant to be - a workaday, simple, small language that does as much hand-holding as possible while still allowing large systems to be built. There is nothing revolutionary or new about it, beyond the particular combination of features it presents. As Paul Graham writes, there's nothing wrong with designing a language for the "average programmer" - just don't expect an inspiring result. Where most fans of the language have gone wrong (myself included) is in expecting it to be - or believing it to be - anything more than it is. Java hasn't become "deeply boring" - it already was from the start. I still appreciate the clean syntax and wide utility of the standard class library, but Java's verbosity (the price it pays for its brand of simplicity) has become wearisome. 12:03:13 PM    comment []

Operating systems and clamshells PalmOS 5 Turns Gold [Slashdot: News for nerds, stuff that matters] I forget - does this release incorporate work from the ex-Be engineers? Saw one of the clamshell Sonys in the local Best Buy the other day - the Star Trek communicator has truly come to life. Someone just needs to sample the little "tweet-tweet-tweet" sound they made when flipped open and get the Clie to do the same. 10:11:28 AM    comment []