WAY OT at this point :)
> [OT]
> My personal take:
> Where (at least for me) Java has it's niche is client side, for
> applets and applications. But for this, 'write once use anywhere' just
> isn't true. Look at Java1.3 (which you really want to use for
> GUI-intensive stuff, though their event/keyboard handling is really not
> well thought out): Available on Windows. Period. In a year it *might*
> be out for Linux, and in maybe 1.5 years for FreeBSD (native). Mac?
> Probably not (other than OSX).
This is true, I haven't looked at 1.3's event handling, but honestly
what would you prefer? A single event loop? Come on.., the 1.1+
event strategy was 100x better than 1.0.2. 1.0's event handling was
crap, and that's what most event loops are designed like. This was
one area where I felt java technology was really far ahead.
(ActionListeners are key)
> Server side it looks better, you don't need the GUI and so Java 1.1x
> is fine, and fairly available. But you can still write most things way
> faster in perl than in Java. And in my experience 'time to market' is
> way more importatnt than a program that 'looks cleaner' or maybe runs
> faster with less memory consumption. And it seems that speed/memory
> wise Java doesn't do any better than perl.
Hmm., well..., here's my gripe with this. Server side perl is a
really fast developement tool. GUI side java is a really fast
developement tool. Why would you take a language that was clearly
designed for GUI developement, that all it's strengths lie with GUI,
and try to make it a server language?..., it's preposterous. It
doesn't even have REGEX's natively..., what the hell is that!?!?!
(Note: there is a really good regex library that's mostly free for
java, not nearly as fast as perl native)
> One advantage Java might have over Perl is that in a team environment
> Java is easier to maintain. It is not that easy to goof up in Java as
> badd as you can in perl, and there is just 'less language' to confuse
> your fellow developer with. But again this comes with a development
> speed penalty.
Hehe, the funny thing is that Java is actually a huge language. I
mean HUGE. But 95% of it is GUI. So if the language designers are
put 95% into the GUI... well, that speaks volumes to me. String
handling sucks, and GUI handling is good. If String handling isn't
good..., was it designed for pushing strings to webbrowsers?
Java is pretty easy to maintain, but proper perl modules are also easy
to maintain. But what I see in the field is people not spending a lot
of time to make good modules. Instead they're pushing projects out
fast, which is easy to do. Perl doesn't put any restrictions on the
developer, they are free to do things however they like. So you can
have beautiful class/module hierarchies in Perl, and you can have a
bunch of flat files that are impossible to make any mods to. In Java
everything MUST be a class. So it forces you to design things
right. But the underlying problem is what's right for one thing isn't
right for others. So Perl becomes sort of a "tool for any job", Java
becomes a tool only for a long term project. (Overhead to start)
Shane.
>
> Gerd
>
>
