On Aug 25, 6:56 pm, Reinier Zwitserloot <[email protected]> wrote: > NB: Also worth considering: No language EVER has become truly gigantic > by offering nice syntax. Instead, the languages that won tended to > offer really crappy syntax but provided something else, not related to > syntax, that caused mass conversion. C did not attempt to abstract > away the bare metal too much but did offer standardization across > platforms. Java brought the garbage collector, very nice (at the time, > at any rate) portable multithreading, and seamless freedom of moving > to different hardware, "seamless" defined as relative to your options > before it came out, all WITHOUT a radical new syntax.
I think it is disingenuous to compare languages today with the likes of C. Especially when your argument is "C did not attempt to abstract away the bare metal" and then go to use this to somehow argue for a language that completely abstracted away the "bare metal" by being a VM targeted language. (There is something rather amusing about claiming that Java is somehow the first language that offered portable anything. Hell, I think SCUMM succeeds at that goal.) I find it a much more compelling story to say that Java managed to take the familiarity with C and expose people to non "bare metal" programming. Once there, people should start to wonder what other ill conceived notions they could drop, such as "all languages should be closer to c." -- 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.
