Java Breaking Down

This has been on my mind for a while, although I've been cowardly about bringing it up. Java is starting to break down. The Javaopolis conference in Belgium is kicking up a lot of dust because of the proposal to implement closures in Java. I've seen some examples and the closure code is god-awful ugly.

Admittedly, my concerns with Java were hunches. The first "hmm" moment I had was when I first explored Aspect Orieted Programming (AOP). AOP really opened the door to the idea that objects were not the only way of  abstracting and decoupling functionality. Specifically they didn't handle cross-cutting concerns like logging, transaction, etc very well. I'd also had an "off" feeling about Java's control structures like looping and exception handling. And then I got involved in Javascript (well, Actionscript at the time) and Ruby. Those problems "felt" much less significant and I saw what was possible with simpler syntax and loose typing mechanisms. Next, the fact that new features like generics and the 'for' loop were added to the language without major, mature field-testing indicated to me that the language did not and would not stand up to more advance design problems. Why not mix in different languages on the Java platform. Tim Bray and Jeff Atwood have said as much. Ruby(JRuby) has a lot of ideas right. And I can't wait to give Scala a try.

Posted by Timothy Washington on 2008.01.03| Original post

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