Berkeley CSUA MOTD:Entry 45694
Berkeley CSUA MOTD
 
WIKI | FAQ | Tech FAQ
http://csua.com/feed/
2025/07/10 [General] UID:1000 Activity:popular
7/10    

2007/2/9-11 [Computer/SW/Languages/Java, Computer/SW/Languages/JavaScript] UID:45694 Activity:low
2/9     Looking for a Javascript slider bar example. The first example
        on Google is horrible-- initialization code all over the place,
        global variables, method conventions suck, etc. Thanks!
        \_ I don't have an answer for you, but what do you think of this
           article?  http://ajaxworldmagazine.com/read/333329_p.htm
           \_ From the article:
              "Although it's gotten significantly better with ECMAScript
               standardization, I would still rather program with Java than
               JavaScript, the main reason being inconsistency. Maybe in
               eight years the current version of ECMAScript will be standard
               across almost all browsers. But the current version of
               JavaScript, despite the random implementations, is already
               available, and there are zero installation issues. I think
               that's a fairly good proof that the reason Java hasn't taken
               over as the RIA language of choice is the installation
               problem."
              This doesn't lend much credence to the author's argumentation or
              critical reading skills.  That said, I think it's an
              interesting read, particularly some of the resources it links
              to. -dans
              \_ Whoa, didn't realize the author was Bruce Eckel.  I'll chalk
                 the bad quote up to a goof as opposed to overarching
                 incompetence. -dans
                 \_ Christ dans, you're an asshole.
                    \_ Yeah, but I stand behind my words. :) Though, it does
                       beg the question, why does pointing out a flaw in
                       someone's argument make me an asshole?  Or is it
                       because I believe flawed arguments are a sign of
                       incompetence?  Or is it because I excuse Bruce Eckel
                       the occasional goof in light of a long history of
                       insightful commentary? -dans
              \_ I think he's saying that Java is a better language but
                 Javascript is easy to install.  Since Javascript is where so
                 much RIA action is, that suggests the installation difficulty
                 as being very important.
                 \_ Yes, I get what he's saying.  He's just saying it badly.
                    Also, having read the entire article, I think it would be
                    more accurate to say he's saying that the available
                    implementation(s) of the Java language are better than the
                    available implementations of Javascript.  Having written a
                    fair amount of both, I feel that Javascript is a *far*
                    better language. -dans
                    \_ Really?  I'd be curious to know why. (not disagreeing,
                       genuinely curious) -emarkp
                       \_ The short version: JavaScript is Lisp with Algol
                          (for the non-language nerds reading this, C) syntax.
                          A bit of elaboration on the short version: Lisp
                          (and functional languages in general) have a lot of
                          powerful tools (e.g. lambda/anonymous functions,
                          closures) built in that many procedural languages
                          lack out of the box.
                          On top of that, Javascript is a *really small*
                          language.  There's something counterintuitive there,
                          which is that, in my opinion, JavaScript, which is a
                          much smaller language than Java (I mean the core
                          language, not the libraries) somehow has line for
                          line/operator for operator more expressive power.
                          Note that I'm not bagging on Java because it's
                          procedural; I love C.  In general, I've come to the
                          opinion that a small (but complete) language is a
                          sign of good language design.
                          -dans
                          sign of good language design. -dans
ERROR, url_link recursive (eces.Colorado.EDU/secure/mindterm2) 2025/07/10 [General] UID:1000 Activity:popular
7/10    

You may also be interested in these entries...
2013/4/29-5/18 [Computer/SW/Languages/C_Cplusplus, Computer/SW/Compilers] UID:54665 Activity:nil
4/29    Why were C and Java designed to require "break;" statements for a
        "case" section to terminate rather than falling-through to the next
        section?  99% of the time poeple want a "case" section to terminate.
        In fact some compilers issue warning if there is no "break;" statement
        in a "case" section.  Why not just design the languages to have
        termination as the default behavior, and provide a "fallthru;"
	...
2013/3/5-26 [Computer/SW/Languages/Java] UID:54618 Activity:nil
3/5     Three emergency Java updates in a month. Why do I have a feeling
        that the third one won't be the last one?
        \_ Bingo!
	...
2012/12/18-2013/1/24 [Computer/SW/Languages/Perl] UID:54561 Activity:nil
12/18   Happy 25th birthday Perl, and FUCK YOU Larry Wall for fucking up
        the computer science formalism that sets back compilers development
        back for at least a decade:
        http://techcrunch.com/2012/12/18/print-happy-25th-birthday-perl
        \_ I tried to learn Perl but was scared away by it.  Maybe scripting
           lanauages have to be like that in order to work well?
	...
2012/8/29-11/7 [Computer/SW/Security] UID:54467 Activity:nil
8/29    There was once a CSUA web page which runs an SSH client for logging
        on to soda.  Does that page still exist?  Can someone remind me of the
        URL please?  Thx.
        \_ what do you mean? instruction on how to ssh into soda?
           \_ No I think he means the ssh applet, which, iirc, was an applet
              that implemented an ssh v1 client.  I think this page went away
	...
2011/12/8-2012/1/10 [Computer/SW/Languages/Java, Computer/SW/Security] UID:54252 Activity:nil
12/8    Java code much worse IRL than pretty much everything else:
        http://preview.tinyurl.com/d5e46cq [ars technica]
	...
2011/4/16-7/13 [Computer/SW/Languages/Python] UID:54086 Activity:nil
4/16    Whoa, I just heard that MIT discontinued 6.001 (classic scheme)
        to 6.01. In fact, 6.00, 6.01 and 6.02 all use Python. What the
        hell? What has the world become? It's a sad sad day. SICP forever!
        \_ old story, they've ditched that shitty book and lang for a while.
        \_ I used to think scheme was cool, then I saw Ka Ping Yee's
           "Beautiful Code" class aka 61a in python, and converted.
	...
2011/2/24-4/20 [Computer/SW/Languages/Java] UID:54048 Activity:nil
2/24    Go Programming Language.  Anyone here use it?  It kind of
        reminds me of java-meets python, and well, that is fitting given it's
        a GOOG product.  What is so special about it?
        \_ as I understand it, it's a suitable OOP-y systems language with more
           structure than C, less complexity than C++, and less overhead than
           Java/Python.
	...
2010/8/8-9/7 [Computer/SW/Languages/C_Cplusplus, Computer/SW/Languages/Web] UID:53914 Activity:nil
8/8     Trying to make a list of interesting features languages have
        touted as this whole PL field comes around, trying to see if they
        have basis in the culture of the time: feel free to add some/dispute
        1970 C, "portability"
        1980 C++, classes, oop, iterators, streams, functors, templates
             expert systems
	...
2009/12/5-26 [Computer/SW/Languages/Java] UID:53569 Activity:nil
12/4    what do people have their JAVA_HOME's set to on soda?
        \_ don't. are you trying to get sun java? It is installed, but not
           the default.  check dpkg -l and dpkg -L
           \_ I'm trying to run maven to get scala/lift.net working
              properly and it's complaining that JAVA_HOME is not set.
              \_ you probably want one of the directories in /usr/lib/jvm,
	...
2009/9/28-10/8 [Computer/SW/Languages/C_Cplusplus] UID:53409 Activity:nil
9/28    http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html
        Java is #1!!! Followed by C, PHP, C++, Visual Basic, Perl,
        C#, Python, Javascript, then finally Ruby. The good news is
        Pascal is going waaaay back up!
        \_ C is still more popular than C++?  I feel much better about myself
           now.
	...
2009/8/7-14 [Computer/SW/Languages/C_Cplusplus, Computer/SW/Languages/Java] UID:53252 Activity:high
8/6     In C one can do "typedef int my_index_t;".  What's the equivalent in
        C#?  Thanks.
        \_ C#? Are you serious? Is this what the class of 2009 learn?
           \_ No.  I have to learn .NET code at work.  I am Class of '93.
           \_ python is what 2009 learns, see the motd thread about recent
              cal courses and languages
	...
2009/7/21-24 [Computer/SW/Languages/Java] UID:53168 Activity:moderate
7/20    For those who care btw, it looks like eclipse is now A Standard Tool
        at UCB ugrad cs, probably replaced emacs.  Furthermore, people get
        angry at seeing Makefiles, (since eclispe takes care of that).  I
        guess it's just a sign of the times.
        \_ The more people at my work use eclipse the less the code is
           managable in emacs.  I'm not sure which application's fault
	...
2009/8/3-11 [Computer/SW/Languages/Web] UID:53231 Activity:moderate
8/1     Where's the place people go for free webspace these days?  Helping
        my sis's  kid learn how to set up html/php/some minor javascript.
        \_ not geocities:
           http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/geocities/close/close-07.html
        \_ why are there 2987394872 places offering free blog space but
           not alot offering free webspace like before.
	...
2009/6/30-7/15 [Computer/SW/Languages/JavaScript] UID:53098 Activity:nil
6/30    Javascript, I love you:
        var b = new Boolean(false);
        b;        // false
        !b;       // ALSO false
        !b == b;  // But this is true!
        !!b == !b // Negate both sides and it's false again. FUCK.
	...
2008/9/22-24 [Science/Electric, Computer/Companies/Google, Computer/SW/Editors/Vi] UID:51263 Activity:kinda low
9/22    Gmail's "conversation feature" drives me nuts! Is there a way to
        disable that and make Gmail act like every other e-mail client on the
        planet? WTF thought this was a nice thing to have on by default?
        \_ Umm, why don't you just use another email service then...
           \_ Umm, I do, which is how I have something to compare to. I get
              mail in at least 4 places only one of which is Gmail. I
	...
2008/6/17-20 [Computer/SW/WWW/Browsers] UID:50275 Activity:kinda low 57%like:50273
6/16    Firefox 3 coming out tomorrow.
        http://news.yahoo.com/s/nf/20080612/bs_nf/60269
        Memory usage - Firefox 3 Beta vs. Firefox 2 vs. IE 7:
        http://blog.pavlov.net/2008/03/11/firefox-3-memory-usage
        \_ There's a rule that says NEVER BE THE FIRST TO TRY IT.
           I'm going to let Firefox3 version 1 hammer out bugs first.
	...
2008/3/4-7 [Computer/SW/Virus] UID:49325 Activity:kinda low
3/4     Hi, what's the best free anti-virus software for XP?  What about
        anti-spyware?  Currently I'm using Active Virus Shield and Spybot.
        Thanks.
        \_ I've used: avg, spybot s&d, adaware, trend micro's housecall.
           \_ Does Spybot S&D protect Firefox?  It soulds like the injection
              feature only supports IE.
	...
2008/3/5-7 [Computer/Companies/Google] UID:49346 Activity:kinda low
3/5     How does Google Map widget work? Is it a flash program or a
        pure Javascript program? When you include a Google Map on your
        home page, how does it talk to the <DEAD>maps.google.com<DEAD> server?
        I thought cross domain is not possible.
        \_ Pure JavaScript.  It uses an <iframe> to avoid cross-domain issues.
           \_ You mean the thing that scrolls/moves around is an
	...
2008/2/7-11 [Computer/SW/Languages] UID:49084 Activity:low
2/7     Hi I'd like to learn Flash. I have no UI experience but I just want to
        learn for the sake for curiosity. I just want to create something that
        is interactive and fun, and don't care about scalability/extensibility/
        reliability/efficiency/blah-blah. What language is Flash most similar
        to and how easy/difficult is it to get started (e.g. "hello world")?
        -kchang
	...
Cache (8192 bytes)
ajaxworldmagazine.com/read/333329_p.htm
Print Story How and Why AJAX, Not Java, Became the Favored Technology for RIAs Several of Bruce Tate's books focused on the flaws in Java and the need to let go of some of the ideas that haven't worked out. And of course there's Steve Jobs now-famous quote (referring to the iPhone): "Java's not worth building in. This backlash has only been necessary because of Sun's death grip on the idea of ubiquitous, omniscient Java. It was admirable once, but a language only evolves if its designers and advocates can acknowledge problems. Pretending that a language is successful in places where it's not is just denial. Finally admitting that EJBs have cost the world enormously, the EJB3 team took lessons from Hibernate and Spring, but not enough to really fix the problem. Most people seem to find that Hibernate and Spring are still simpler and more straightforward than EJB3, so the lack of a rush back to a technology that had such a heavy cost in the past shouldn't be a surprise. Java 5 was a tacit admission that Microsoft was doing some very interesting things with C#, and proposed features in Java 7 support the idea that Java is now playing catch-up with C# 30 Competition is good, and Java is not dead. It continues to evolve, and the appearance of new languages built on the JVM, like JRuby, Scala and Groovy, is a sign of vitality in the world of Java. The Web is a Mess Seeing possibilities is great, but the downside is that it can be hard to acknowledge when something isn't working. The concept of the web was visionary, but much of the web is a failure. In particular, applications of any complexity using HTML, CSS and JavaScript are difficult and expensive to develop, and it seems virtually impossible to get identical appearances across browsers. Even simple pages look different because of font issues. If you use Firefox, how many sites do you visit that are at least partially unreadable because they've been created only for Internet Explorer (IE)? to the point that I'm seriously considering going back to IE. After years, it's still implemented inconsistently across browsers. As long as you're using HTML and CSS, you'll always wonder if what you've created is going to produce an unpleasant effect on different browsers. Browsers other than IE or Firefox can often get it even worse. JavaScript has been around since, effectively, the beginning of the Web, but the browser wars made JavaScript inconsistent and thus painful to use. A key part of Ajax is that someone has gone to the trouble of figuring out cross-platform JavaScript issues so you can ignore the often radical inconsistencies between different browsers. The first is that JavaScript is limited in what it can do. Although Ajax is an excellent hack that gets the last bit of mileage from JavaScript, it is nonetheless a hack, and the end is in sight. The second problem is that you are relying on Ajax libraries to handle cross-browser issues. If you want to write your own code, you must become an expert on those issues, and at that point much of the leverage of Ajax goes away. Ajax improves the experience a lot, but it has limits and I suspect we've already seen most of the tricks that Ajax is going to offer. Even more impressive is the Google Web Toolkit (GWT) which translates type-checked Java into cross-platform JavaScript in order to speed the development process. You write code in Java, and GWT compiles it into cross-browser JavaScript. JavaScript, then, becomes the intermediate code that will run on all platforms. But it took Google's brain trust to solve the problems that shouldn't have happened in the first place. And if the library you need isn't there, you must, again, be a cross-platform JavaScript expert in order to write new code. As brilliant as GWT is, I think it will still run out of gas due to the inherent limitations of JavaScript and browsers. We do see relatively amazing Ajax-based tools like GMail and the other Google tools which are slowly seducing me (but I repeat: it took Google to create those, not Joe garage-programmer). Very nice, but is this the best you ever want to see on the web? You're seeing, if not the limit, then very close to it in those applications, and even then they don't work consistently (yes, I know Google tools are "still in beta"). In GMail, for example, you're supposed to be able to press keys like r' to reply to a message. Sometimes this works, often it doesn't, to the point where it's maddening. And more and more often, when I use web applications like GMail, my "control-c" copy operation stops working. It could be Windows, Firefox, JavaScript or something else but it seems to be associated with web apps and it's been happening for at least a year. And frankly I don't care why it's happening, and neither does any other consumer. When things this simple are broken, the outlook is not promising. How much effort must we expend to compensate for the long sequence of misguided decisions that has produced today's web? Rich Internet Applications At some point we must ask why Java applets haven't become ubiquitous on the internet as the client-side standard for RIAs (Rich Internet Applications). This is an especially poignant question because Gosling and team justified rushing Java out the door (thus casting in stone many poorly-considered decisions) so that it could enable the internet revolution. That's why the AWT and Applets were thrown in at the last second, reportedly taking a month from conception to completion. Bill Venners quotes Patrick Naughton as saying: "It was a timing issue, there was only about a three-month window in which the whole Java phenomenon could have happened. and this attitude always seems to be a mistake when building programming languages. You're creating the fundamental architecture that you hope people will adopt and use for many years. This is the place that requires careful thought, not rushing. I can see why the Green Team took this attitude: it's the Microsoft Way. Throw a product out there in order to get your foot in the window. Over time, you can fix up any flaws that occurred from rushing the thing out. One of the most popular languages ever, Visual Basic, has evolved over the years. Python has fixed some things that would even break old code, in order to clean up the language. But for static languages with a large code base (verbose languages in particular), fixing things up doesn't seem to work so well. All the code must be recompiled and possibly changed--although I would argue that Java could have taken the Python approach: just don't upgrade if you don't want to change. There are lots of companies that don't upgrade to newer Java versions, anyway. The Installation Problem So Java has been around for 10 years and applets are not the primary way that we interact with the web. I think the main reason for this is the installation problem, another area of Java that wasn't well thought-out. It's clearly not because JavaScript is so easy to work with--JavaScript cross-platform problems are the reason people have avoided it in the past. Ajax is popular because we know that the necessary software for the client side is already installed. Someone had to figure out how to deal with the cross-platform issues for JavaScript first, but if JRE installation was trivial, everyone might have just created Java applets. But they didn't, applets are not ubiquitous, and everyone got excited about Ajax instead. Although it's gotten significantly better with ECMAScript standardization, I would still rather program with Java than JavaScript, the main reason being inconsistency. Maybe in eight years the current version of ECMAScript will be standard across almost all browsers. But the current version of JavaScript, despite the random implementations, is already available, and there are zero installation issues. I think that's a fairly good proof that the reason Java hasn't taken over as the RIA language of choice is the installation problem. Various fixes have been attempted for Java over the years, but I think the basic issue is that whoever is trying to solve the installation problem is someone who has a more inward technical focus r...