Java_ Evolutionary Dead End
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Java: Evolutionary Dead End
http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=221903[2011/4/1 10:43:33]
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Computing Thoughts
Java: Evolutionary Dead End
by Bruce Eckel
January 3, 2008
Summary
This sounds bad, but it needs to happen if Java is to ultimately stay in the
mainstream. That is, if feature accretion hasn't already irreparably damaged the
language.
I'm at Javapolis in Antwerp, Belgium, where I've
given a keynote. It's Friday morning, and the day
before, Josh Bloch gave a presentation comparing
the issues in closures proposals. He sits across from
me at breakfast and we further discuss the topic.
Since the beginning I've complained that, at the
same time that it claims to be simple, Java is too
noisy as a language. Code is read much more than it
is written, and this noise directly translates to real
costs in software development. Brain cycles are a
very scarce resource, and anything that uses them
up without benefit -- even something as seemingly
innocuous as the extra verbiage in
System.out.println() -- takes those cycles away from somewhere they could be useful, and
reduces the programming efficiency of the language (Steve Yegge recently wrote about this
problem).
In his presentation, Josh said that the last-minute addition of wildcards to Java generics may
have pushed the complexity of the language too far. Neal Gafter has suggested that we reify
generics. Both were originally unequivocal fans of Java generics, based on their responses to
the criticisms I wrote about the topic. Now there seems to be a shift, and I've also seen other
people begin to say "generics are still great but..." (Although Tim Bray recently called them a
disaster).
The only control we have over complexity is abstraction: hide the parts that don't matter ("divide
and conquer" is a variation). The paradox of Java is that a critical aspect of the complexity
problem was ignored; code readability was not considered an important issue. It seems that if
the IDE writes the code for you, then it doesn't matter if that code is needlessly complex.
Josh took this idea of complexity one step further. He said that it's not just the complexity of a
particular feature in isolation, where it can often seem fairly straightforward. It's the combinatorial
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