Much of the discussion so far has focused on which approach is better. I think it is interesting to read some of these knowledgeable, well thought out opinions.
I find it valuable to focus the discussion on what each approach does well. I rather like to not limit myself to one approach as the good one. (E.g. think of comparing a hammer vs. pliers. Do you really have to decide which of only one you get to put in you tool box?) Sometimes the discussions seem to veer towards: the hammer was horrible for tightening a loose nut, so now, I only use pliers. Java is a great thread of commonality. One of it's strengths is it's rich history and community. This community is tied together based on this experience. It has always seemed to draw a large number of people who are willing to share ideas and work together. Lately I have been drawn to Scala because it adds tools to help me be more productive in ways that mater to me, but I don't really think that it is for everyone. Statically typed languages (Scala in particular) are my tool of choice by far for any new large complicated project. My experience with dynamic languages was first Perl then later Groovy. I love the Groovy. If I want to write a quick script and want to be able to use my Java libs and skills, then it is great. By trying it a few times, I found that even factoring some time for looking up stuff that I didn't understand, I was more productive than with Java. (But a also a little more risky and dangerous in my approaches) My biggest win with a dynamic approach (Groovy) was part of a project to represent product specifications and pricing based on configuration of each product. I tried various approaches with XML, Java and hybrids. But the Groovy approach was easier, more readable, and much more compact. Having experienced this, I can see how there are classes of work, like web devel, where this flexibility and would be nice. (I haven't tried to go back and try again with Scala, but I will probably look at it some day.) James -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en.
