www.zefhemel.com/archives/2004/08/16/why-java-sucks
Eclipse I can be very productive, I can probably code faster in Java using Eclipse than in any other language (including PHP and Python), debugging is easy, errors can be found quickly and easily. But as any platform does to some extent: Java sucks, and I'll tell you why. Swing I haven't used it a lot myself, thankfully, but to me it seems too complicated, slow and on top of all: ugly. When I use an OS, I like consistent behaviour and looks. I don't want some friggin' purple, slow, ugly looking window on my screen that eats away half of my memory. That's why IBM developed SWT which uses native widgets supplied by the OS. Not only is this a lot faster and uses less memory, it looks better too. Proposed Swing slogan: "Sure it looks like shit, but at least it does so consistently on all operating systems. " J2EE J2EE is the Java way to build "Enterprise Applications". I have some experience with the Servlet/JSP part of it and it works reasonably well. One thing though: Sun loves XML Every servlet you create, every JSP taglibrary tag you write has to be registered in an XML file.
KeyTopic is work around the servlet registration problem (by using only a single servlet). I also briefly looked at EJB, that's even much, much worse. Every EJB has like an interface file, home-thing file, remote-thing file, and a couple of XML files attached to it. Most of this can be generated automatically by using applications like XDoclets, but still, it's a mess. It's confusing, complex, and most importantly: so much more complex than it has to be.
I'll just quote the list, to make it more clear: + You need to be proficient in object-oriented analysis and design (OOA/D), design patterns (GoF, J2EEDP), and integration patterns. You should be intimately familiar with UML, especially class, object, interaction, and state diagrams. You should be able to decompile a class file and comprehend basic byte code instructions. You should also be familiar with the JavaBeans component model for UI widgets. JavaBeans are also used in JSP to isolate business logic from the presentation tier. You also need to understand the implications of the object-relation impedance mismatch, how it will affect your business objects' interactions with a relational database, and its performance consequences.
You should also learn how to package and deploy applications on it, and be able to monitor its performance and tune it. It's so much choice that I just don't know what to choose and what the implications will be. This is a major reason why I hesitated to start with Java, it's just so amazingly overwhelming and complex. Purity Basically the only proper way to write your software in Java is system independent; On the server side this usually isn't the biggest problem, but when you do client stuff, you might want to use the system tray in Windows. Oh sorry, I bought this really cool OS that has all those cool features, but now I can't use them because that'd affect my purity. With Java 15 (not out yet) some stupid decissions were made. Generics in Java use a wipe-mechanism to retain backward compatibility with previous Java versions. Some of the drawbacks are these: + No parameter type information is retained on a generic collection. You can't ask what the type parameters were of a certain collection at run-time, for example.
Some smaller things + The Classpath: As a beginner you'll always have problems with the classpath. Java can't find the class you're trying to use, says the package declaration is wrong. The only reason they're here is for speed's sake, and to complicate things more.
NET 20 will have CLR support built-in for generics and won't use a hack, like the wiping that will be used in Java 15; there's a lot less choice in application frameworks (they basically all come from Microsoft); there are value types and reference types, which are, arguably, more natural than primitives and object types; C# is a more feature rich (and in my opinion better) language than Java;
Gideon at August 16th, 2004 at 1:05 pm 2 Gideon: Why would you want methods to be objects? Doesn't that go against what methods are supposed to do? By Jaap at August 16th, 2004 at 4:46 pm 3 I think he means you can't treat them like objects. You can't pass them to for example a function as if it were an object. In languages such as Python, everything is an object, including methods and classes.
Marten Veldthuis at August 16th, 2004 at 11:31 pm 5 I'm not so very fond of Ruby (too perl-ish). But I never heard of Ruby On Rails either, looks like it deserves to be looked at. By Zef Hemel at August 17th, 2004 at 6:53 am 6 Admin, please erase the previous two jiMMy & replace with this one.
KDE,Gnome in toy-languages or risk being labelled as simply TOYS. Moves 10 steps forward, 10 steps back Back in early days, these very same language designers bitched about C++ most powerful features (templates & operator overloading): 1 to complex to master/implement/blah blah 2 subject to abuse Their recommendation - we dont need it, can be easily replicated: 1 use manual error-prone to cut and paste to mimic template 2 use extremely verbose methods to mimic operators *** class_subtract(class_divide(class_add(class_multiply(2,3),5), 6),1); Guess what, templates finally make their way back, these very same features, they trashed... Does it take them that long to see the light at the end of the tunnel? These very same language designers, who once trashed C++ most powerful features, finally seen the light that Bjarne long saw values in multi-paradigms... It's slow and sometimes bureaucratic, but it has from the beginning software engineering in mind, and this is cool at specification and design time, because there's not surprises. J2EE maybe is too complex for web developing, but it's really a distributed processing framework that has the top mark in distributed application benchmarking (look for DNA sequencing), so you maybe are trying to kill flies with a cannon... A really good thing: little amount of keywords (compared with C++ and C#) and consistent syntax (at least in 14). NET and forget the Microsoft almost aquired CF a few yaers ago because it was so good. If you haven't tried it don't knock it, I have respect for your article because you have actually used JAVA and can talk properly about it. NET platform has one big disadvantage: It is created by Microsoft, microsoft owns the platform and that is bad. In java you are independent from the platform and that is a huge advantage. And swing is not slow, en looks really good, but only if you use it right.
Java rules By Tjerk at December 5th, 2004 at 7:05 pm 10. I have some radical new ways, implementing which, java can even surpass assembly speeds. do some research before start writing stuff on the web By Sam at February 18th, 2005 at 8:50 pm 13. do some study first before writing on the web By Sam at February 18th, 2005 at 8:51 pm 14. I have been programming C++, C, perl, php and a few others for years. Out of boredom, I started reading some Java books, to really get into it -- I only had a superficial knowledge of the language. My very first impression: why does a dynamically allocated and garbage collected language need static arrays, for instance? That's just one of the things I didn't like - I think some choices are just plain wrong - but in general I must say that it does get most things right. Now, when you start reading about the rest - it's a complete and utter mess - a nonsense of acronyms, technologies that sound like vaporware, and plain old marketing. I see absolutely no need of having this sort of complexity - what happened to KISS? what happened to writing tools that serve a specific purpose well? I have been making a list of the different technologies I need to explore that are common to a Java developer and I have 2 By george at February 21st, 2005 at 7:58 am 15. cool discussion By Anonymous at March 8th, 2005 at 10:55 am 17. It takes time to appreciate the finer things, unfortunately as you focus is obvious you'll stay in the dark ages. once you get on, it never stops - the marketing folks at Sun/Oracle, etc keep adding new crap that your boss thinks the company ...
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