From http://www.paulgraham.com/javacover.html:
... let me clarify that I'm not writing here about Java (which I have never used) but about hacker's radar (which I have thought about a lot).[...]
So far, Java seems like a stinker to me. I've never written a Java program, never more than glanced over reference books about it, but I have a hunch that it won't be a very successful language. I may turn out to be mistaken; making predictions about technology is a dangerous business. But for what it's worth, as a sort of time capsule, here's why I don't like the look of Java:
1. It has been so energetically hyped. Real standards don't have to be promoted. No one had to promote C, or Unix, or HTML. A real standard tends to be already established by the time most people hear about it. On the hacker radar screen, Perl is as big as Java, or bigger, just on the strength of its own merits.
2. It's aimed low. In the original Java white paper, Gosling explicitly says Java was designed not to be too difficult for programmers used to C. It was designed to be another C++: C plus a few ideas taken from more advanced languages. Like the creators of sitcoms or junk food or package tours, Java's designers were consciously designing a product for people not as smart as them. Historically, languages designed for other people to use have been bad: Cobol, PL/I, Pascal, Ada, C++. The good languages have been those that were designed for their own creators: C, Perl, Smalltalk, Lisp.
[...]
4. No one loves it. C, Perl, Python, Smalltalk, and Lisp programmers love their languages. I've never heard anyone say that they loved Java.5. People are forced to use it. [...]
6. It has too many cooks. [...]
[...]
9. It's designed for large organizations. Large organizations have different aims from hackers. They want languages that are (believed to be) suitable for use by large teams of mediocre programmers-- languages with features that, like the speed limiters in U-Haul trucks, prevent fools from doing too much damage.
I think it's pretty lame that by his own admission he hasn't even used the language and puts forth this stuff. He's talking about "Java-the-tech-tabloid-phenomenon" rather than the language and usage. I'd expect that from Jon Katz, but not here.
And the fact that there are tons of thriving open source projects in Java would seem to dispute the fact that hackers as a group find Java objectionable.
Re:Again with the Java
ziggy on 2002-02-04T18:07:32
I disagree. If anything, it's that pg's definition of "hacker" is objectionable.And the fact that there are tons of thriving open source projects in Java would seem to dispute the fact that hackers as a group find Java objectionable.:-) Hacker, when coming from the mouth of a lispheaded MIT grad seems to mean "any brilliant programmer (and MIT/Stanford/CMU/... grad) whose opinion I agree with".
:-)/2
