For the specific case of Java, I wasn't thinking of a timeline; I was more thinking of how it spent a long time "wandering in the wilderness" of web extensions before it got adopted in an unexpected way in web servers, and then enterprise web servers (not to mention that it started out intended for embedded use).
There are some strange results in the language and its environment of its time spent focused on the wrong sector. Its library grew in strange ways due to the huge trendy focus on it. "I know, I know. It's no great curse to be poor. But it's no great blessing either!" -- Tevya, Fiddler on the Roof -Wm On Fri, Aug 5, 2016 at 1:18 PM Thomas Costigliola <[email protected]> wrote: > I'm sure Java is no friend to this forum. But, assuming "before > popularity Java" to be ~1996 to 2000, are you saying the language became > worse after that? Is it because you think too much was added and it > became too complex? > > On 08/01/2016 01:21 PM, William Tanksley, Jr wrote: > > Java. Ugh. > > > > On Mon, Aug 1, 2016 at 10:02 AM Thomas Costigliola <[email protected]> > wrote: > > > >> I will not question the general premise; that in some situations > >> popularity can cause more problems than it can fix. But to make things > >> more concrete can you give an account of a programming language that > >> suffered from a glut popularity? > >> > >> On 08/01/2016 10:42 AM, Raul Miller wrote: > >>> On Mon, Aug 1, 2016 at 9:51 AM, Thomas Costigliola <[email protected]> > >> wrote: > >>>> I would not automatically discount popularity. Usually, the more > viral a > >>>> language is, the more people there are working to improve it and the > >> faster > >>>> it matures. Also, there are more libraries and better interoperability > >> with > >>>> other languages and environments. All of which in turn increases > >> popularity. > >>>> The question is which must come first, the chicken or the egg? > >>> > >>> You can't ignore popularity. > >>> > >>> But it's a tool, and one that destroys approximately as much as it > >> creates. > >>> > >>> So one of the tricks is: how do you keep things working while > >>> supporting all the people who are jumping on the popularity train? > >>> That is not always easy. > >>> > >>> Thanks, > >>> > >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > >> For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
