begin quoting Andrew Lentvorski as of Sun, Apr 10, 2005 at 03:18:02PM -0700: > On Apr 10, 2005, at 10:51 AM, Stewart Stremler wrote: > >One of the criticisms frequently aimed at Java is that too many newbie > >programmers are writing (bad) Java programs. I think it's a great > >second or third language*, and is a better first language than many > >alternatives. > > Gee, which language provides us with all of those buffer overflow > exploits? I can level the same criticism at C.
You, no doubt, can gleefully level that same criticism at any language that gets into your crosshairs. (I didn't say I agreed with the criticism, only that _that_ one seems to rank pretty high when I get people throwing (programming) language criticism at me. Typically it's followed by something about how Python is a better language anyway...) > My opinion is that Java and Visual Basic get so much bad press > because they are the common languages, and 90% of everything is > crap. Consequently, the 90% of junk produced by Java and VB coders > dwarfs the 90% of junk produced in other languages. Yup. > I would also argue that there is some self-selection going on. Any > programmer who takes the time to learn a second programming language > is *by definition* part of the 10%. Any programmer who takes the > time to learn a programming language that will not necessarily > enhance their job prospects is probably even further up the skill curve. Most of the languages I've bothered to learn (many of which I've since forgotton) don't do me any good on a resume. > >There are a number of languages that are built on _TOP_ of Java and > >leverage its platform-independence that might be a better fit for the > >porting from PHP. If you don't like Java syntax, you can still > >leverage the rest of the system. > > Sure, but it's not really the platform independence that they are > leveraging. It's the pre-built libraries that everybody likes. I'm giving 'em the benefit of the doubt. :) -Stewart "I _like_ platform independence!" Stremler -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-lpsg
