March 10, 2004
Basic Java philosophy still sucks

[UPDATE II: Bruce Eckel adds criticism of the same type on the new Java Generics]

I would like to add some points to the famous Why I Am Not A Java Programmer. My number 1 objection to Java is that java programming carries a basic philosphy of "Nothing but Java" and all the Java projects I have ever had to use has carried that philosphy with them in the extended philosphy "Nothing but our stuff". Everybody is making "Extensible Frameworks" but they never use the other guys frameworks. Case in point: The Eclipse IDE does not, on first install, when initially opened provide something as simple as a "File Open" in the file menu. If your resource was not created with Eclipse it does not exist. I realize that of course you can open your files but the fact that you have to think to do it is a serious alarm bell against any further use.
I simply cannot accept that I cannot casually use Java/Eclipse. Netbeans is better in this respect but only marginally so.
I like things that were created to work well "bottom up", an IDE starts as a source editor and then attaches functionality to that. It should never be the other way around.

[UPDATE: One more thing: From an environment where design patterns are second nature there is a peculiar absence of facades: So many simple tasks can only be accomplished by composing a number of highly abstract components (If you know Java you all know the examples from basic file I/O via XML APIs on to various J2EE apis). From an implementation stand point that is the way to play, but the lack of facades makes everything look horribly complicated even for simple usage scenarios]

I realize these complaints are not new - If they are being adressed by a new wave of Java API's do let me know.

Yes, I know there is Jython - but that is because of Python developers willing to adapt. Yes, I know there's BSF but that's just another framework. Yes, I know there is support for hooking in native API's but come on, you know that you're guilty.

Posted by Claus at March 10, 2004 01:10 PM | TrackBack (0)
Comments (post your own)
Help the campaign to stomp out Warnock's Dilemma. Post a comment.
Name:


Email Address:


URL:



Type the characters you see in the picture above.

(note to spammers: Comments are audited as well. Your spam will never make it onto my weblog, no need to automate against this form)

Comments:


Remember info?