On Tue, Jul 13, 2010 at 5:01 AM, Wildam Martin <[email protected]> wrote: > On Tue, Jul 13, 2010 at 10:59, Kevin Wright <[email protected]> wrote: >> Having IDEs write boilerplate for you is NEVER the correct solution, not >> until they can read it for you as well. > > I think there is a difference between boilerplate and meaningful > variable and function names!
There is nothing preventing you from writing meaningful identifiers in non-Java languages. Is a type somehow more meaningful if you write it twice on the same line? You don't trust the reader to believe that you really meant it the first time? And I'm not saying this because I'm a victim of language hype, many Java libraries' APIs are designed to let you avoid stuttering. What's so bad about that being baked into a language? >> You forgot my favourite! >> scala: val list2 = list map (_ + 1) > > A very good example of code that is difficult to read. If you are not > into Scala you can't understand. I like languages, where you look at a > code example and you understand already without really knowing the > language. Really? What about that is any harder than an uninitiated person grokking Java's for loop syntax? The underscore requires a guess, but if you know what a map function does and have ever used one in any language, it's not too great a leap to guess. > Imagine a school boy learning the language. I mean, I > wrote my first program, when I was about 8 years old using BASIC. That's a fine property to have for a language to teach 8-year-olds, but we don't have to restrict language design to what an 8-year-old can understand (but here I'm falling for a bit of a straw man - just because a language isn't on the "my first language" level does not also mean it's needlessly complex). The object oriented paradigm was notably absent from the programs you wrote in BASIC, should we resist using that as well? -Lyle -- 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.
