Hi,
Interesting conversation. I vaguely disagree with your overall sentiment, but
the following prodded me out of lurker state. :)
Ken McNeil wrote:
>
> >Do you REALLY want to make Java into the horrible mess C++ is today?
>
> Okay, I will substantiate this...
>
> 1. In the spirit of Darwinism we could say that without competition Java is
> likely to stagnate (like C++ did). By adding competition to the environment
> that made C++ the mess you speak of would have been avoided. In fact Java is
> simply competition to C++ that came a little to late to help it along.
>
I'm not sure what you're saying - I think you may be be mushing together two
kinds of competition: (1) From within the same language, and (2) from other
languages. And, I think there's been lots of both for C++ over time: the
various vendors (type 1), and Powerbuilder, VB, Delphi... (type 2).
>
> 2. In the spirit of "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" without competition the
> pace at which Java develops will be slower and will lead to a weaker product
> in the end.
>
I see competition for Java all over the place - Python, Smalltalk, VB, ActiveX
- maybe this isn't what you mean.
>
> 3. Competition does not necessarily imply that you will get a large amount
> of little add-ons that will lead to a mess like C++. This happens when
> technical choices are made in the market place not democratically. With an
> open development environment you will see a hybrid of this market place vs.
> democratic development process.
>
I really really wish this could be true, but it's hard to accept. Are there
any precedents for this working? It seems to me that you've either got to
totally open development (like Python or Perl), or go the other route and
totally control it. I don't really care as long as the thing works.
(Maybe Python is what you're after...)
>
> _______________________________________________________________
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^^^^^ Yikes!
- Robb
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