Sun was a computer vendor that I admired during the days of very, very bad IBM PC's and toy Apples. They had very nice workstations, very nice software, and many intelligent employees. They developed so many things it is hard to remember them all.
But I would have to say that Java is the one thing that strikes me as a very big loss now that Oracle has consumed Sun and all of its IP. Although, technically, Sun owned Java, it had never charged for it as a programming language. There may be products made from Java that were for-pay, but even those are frequently free of charge.
I actually don't like Java, except for a few aspects of its abilities. I know it, I write programs with it, but there are a lot of things about it that prohibit me from using it for serious work.
Number one, it is always interpreted, or compiled into an intermediate byte code, for whichever machine it runs on. There are ways to optimize Java, sort of, but its very nature as a "hidden object" system makes it work very hard on the inside so that the programmers on the outside don't have to explicitly allocate and free memory, or worry about what happens after a function is disposed of, etc.
C is extremely the opposite of Java (except for most of its syntax). Everything is right out front. Getting all tangled in your own rope and hanging yourself with C is quite common. It is exceptionally close to machine language, so it is more easily optimized for whichever platform it runs on. But it must be compiled, in advance, before it can execute.
C++ is sort of a cross between C and Java. It allows you to hang yourself and shoot all virtual copies of yourself in their virtual feet, as well as pretend that you know all the big words which are used to describe the components and object mechanisms like overloading multiple inherited protected methods. But C++ also has the hidden object problem, only made worse when some system like .NET tries to mix C++ and C# and Visual Basic and J# ad infinitum into the same bag of worms.
But, as much as I like the bulls-eye, sniper rifle effect of C, and as much as I put up with the haughty, but effective maze of highly optimized C++ objects -- I will still miss Sun's Java. It isn't that I won't use it anymore, or that it will disappear altogether as a language. It isn't so simple as that.
When Sun owned Java and the world trusted Sun, it was like a bright and shiny day. But now that Oracle has bought Animal Farm, you know that the dogs, chickens and horses are not going to be treated as equal as the pigs. And now the very word Java is like the word Dark. The Sun has set, and I hope that the night is not a dreary darkness, ruled by Larry, Prince of Darkness.
No comments:
Post a Comment