I've toyed with the idea of learning Java for years, and lost out on one job opportunity where Java was advertised as being a desired skill and it turned out to be mandatory to have Java experience. I've looked at it, and just don't see how to find the time to learn all the class libraries etc. etc. to get real experience with it, without using it full time in my day job. By the same token, I feel that a decent perl programmer needs to know not just the basic syntax of the language but its useful idioms and at least a general idea of what CPAN modules are available to facilitate different tasks. So I don't see a realistic way to go learn Java without either getting a job where they pay me to learn Java, or maybe working on open source java projects as a second job or at least part time job in terms of time commitment.
Just a couple days ago here at work someone compared perl to Windows Shell Script and asked if I knew any other "high level" languages. The fact that he was impressed I used Visual Basic once upon a time unnerved me, since I moved from it to perl because I saw perl's greater power, and of late VB has been trying to add some of perl's string handling features. From a practical standpoint, I honestly fail to see Java's advantage when it comes to solving real problems; it has shinier IDE's, and maybe more out of the box solutions written using it, and certainly more books written about it. And there are the standard arguments about strongly typed vs. weakly typed languages. Am I just blinded by my own language bigotry, or not giving enough weight to these factors? Wes Sheldahl Neil Bauman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> on 03/28/2003 03:50:03 AM To: Vicki Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Java and Perl On 3/27/03 at 11:51 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Vicki Brown) wrote: > Do a lot of people have both Perl and Java experience? When the dust settles, according to The Gartner Group, the IT world will be 40% .NET, 40% Java, and 20% Open Source. I tend to agree with this assessment. Given that Java and C# are, for all intents and purposes, identical, and given the likely dearth of programming jobs for the next few years, I would urge all Open Source programmers to learn Java or C#.
