On 03/06/2017 07:47 PM, H. S. Teoh via Digitalmars-d wrote:
On Sun, Mar 05, 2017 at 05:26:08PM +0000, Russel Winder via Digitalmars-d wrote:
Oh for the days when the only error message you ever got was 0c4.
You can get similar experiences even in modern times in the embedded
area (at least hobbyist anyway, I guess there is all that JTAG stuff). I
remember doing some demos on a late prototype Propeller MC, and there
were times all I had for debugging was a single solitary LED. To this
day, I still can't decide whether that was fun or horrible. I must've
have a bit of masochist in me :P
The zealotry,
when present, is more about the JVM than Java per se.
Perhaps my perception is colored by a close acquiantance who happens to
be a Java zealot to this very day. :-P JVM zealotry, OTOH, I don't see
very much at all. In fact, I've never even heard such a term until you
said it.
I learned the true meaning of Java zealotry ten or so years ago, when
talking to a co-worker (our resident Java-fan - 'course, this was a VB6
house so I can't entirely blame him for Java fandom) and I made some
remark involving checked exceptions (which, at the time, were already
widely considered problematic, or even a mistake, even within the Java
world). I was stunned to see a quizzical expression on his face and then
learn he was genuinely puzzled by the mere suggestion of Java's checked
exceptions having any downside.
Luckily, this does seem much less common that it was at the time.
The thing that gets to me is that these teachers, good or bad, committed
the fallacy of embracing a single paradigm to the exclusion of
everything else, even in the face of obvious cases where said paradigm
didn't fit very well with the problem domain. Some aspects of Java also
reflect this same fallacy -- such as those ubiquitous singleton static
classes in the OS-wrapping modules, or the impossibility of declaring a
function outside of a class -- which to me are indications that it
wasn't just the teachers, but a more pervasive trend in the Java
ecosystem of putting on OO-centric blinders.
Yes, this. Although, granted, the OO-koolaid *was* quite strong indeed
in those days.
It really is strange to look back on all that, when I was fairly sold on
OO too (just not quite as fanatically so), and compare to now:
At this point I feel that class-based polymorphism mostly just turned
out to be an awkward work-around for the lack of first-class functions
and closures in mainstream languages. What convinced me: After years of
using D, I find myself using OO less and less (OO polymorphism nearly
never, aside from exception hierarchies), and instead of feeling
hamstringed I feel liberated - and I'm normally a kitchen-sink kinda guy!
