Re: The great Java showcase (re: 2nd historic mistake)

[Bert Bril <bert@dgb.nl>]

James P. White wrote:
> 
> Robert Dewar wrote:
> >
> > James P. White <jim@pagesmiths.com> wrote in article
> > <3404670B.C3A2C4A2@pagesmiths.com>...
> > > Even though Java lacks anything as comprehensive as DBC, in our
> > > experience the simple matter of having automatic memory management and
> > > pointer protection has yielded a productivity boost of several hundred
> > > percent.
> >
> > If automatic memory management really cut down your development time by
> > a factor of several, I hate to think of what on earth you were doing to
> > waste that much time previously. Sure memory management problems can be
> > persnickety, but if they are taking up 80% of your time, something is
> > VERY wrong with the way you are writing programs.
> 
> Yes, there is something VERY wrong with the way most programmers (not me
> of course) write programs.

So, do the programmers decide not to use GC? That _is_ a major problem.
Because it's a design issue. And if the boost of GC is so large
somewhere, then they should get GC immediately there. For any serious
language there is GC available nowadays. And, e.g., in C++ you can now
even choose which parts you want to handle manually, and which part not
(see e.g. http://www.geodesic.com ).

It's always the same story. People find themselves in a badly managed
environment with bad QA, bad Design, bad everything. And then, of
course, the language is to blame. Java may be the best choice for a lot
of situations. But the evaluation of whether it is the best should be
kept separated from these managerial problems. If you have no QA: make
sure you get that first. You'll not make good software using Java then,
either.


Bert

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