> You can have the best shiniest language, but if there are no libraries on > it, then no one will care about it because its just to hard to get started > if one wants to build something big and grand - thats just life. Libraries > and frameworks keep a platform alive for development, fuzzy shiny bits > inbuilt to the language only get things started.
Language is not everything of course, but it's a synergy as I see it. What made managers see VB6 as a productivity superstar while developers saw it as a language abomination? The synergy of language, library and tooling just made sense for a certain category of desktop applications. What usually happens is that stuff starts as a specific API, then it's generalized and then it's sometimes baked into first- class language constructs. That is why we no longer roll our own VTABLE which allows us to move from object oriented concepts into code, a lot *faster* than before. This further facilitates tooling aspects, such as compilers doing more static analysis and IDE's supporting refactoring etc. > From the Danish people i have met many learn English > simply because of the ubiquity of American and English popular culture, so > learning all three languages was almost automatic and part of growing up - > it just happened. Nah it doesn't just happen. It's mandatory to learn two foreign languages in school. Language is seen as a desirable communication skill just as reading, writing, debating in our native language. It's what allows me to participate in this forum and consume resources that would otherwise be out of reach. > Scientists dont worry about what language or notations etc their material is > in, nor do they constantly strive to reinvent new means to express their > work. Programming is not really a science, not when you step outside formal CS with P != NP, Turing completeness etc. Programs are giant recipes for how things work and we will likely never develop a notation succinct enough to capture the semantics of side-effects, which is what most real-world programs care about. If we aim for better (faster, safer, cleaner, clearer...) ways to solve problems, it seems only natural to target the language which is the primary driver of the programming model. The alternative we see a good share of in Java, everyone coming up with their own notion of properties which isn't consistent across technologies (JAXB, JSF, Swing etc.). -- 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.
