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

[Tim Ottinger <tottinge@dave-world.net>]

Not all brilliant people are always pleasant people, granted, and
language wars are either dull or inflammatory, but let's not lose
perspective.

Meyer is brilliant. If you read his books or articles with your
"language war filter" on full blast, you find that he has many wonderful
ideas and a very solid foundation for his thoughts and even his stronger
opinions. I learn something everytime I take a look at his Eiffel book.

He did create a powerful construct in "design by contract". He did
create a powerful language to support it. He's said more than once that
DBC seems to him to be more important than all the rest of the OO-ness
supported by modern OO languages. I'm sure that he's very proud of his
accomplishments, and it's embittering to see language developers and
users staying away in droves.

I'm sure that Meyer has driven people away by some of his postings, and
I'm sure that that's also a horrible shame. But people should try to
separate their bias against the man from their bias against the ideas or
products that he's developed.

> > However, from a fairly unbias observer's standpoint on these Eiffel
> vs.
> > Java threads,
>
> More accurately, it's Eiffel vs. The World.
>
>  I am saying that the Eiffel proponents are taking the
> > wrong approach.  Most of the threads have been kicked off by posts
> by
> > Meyer, who presents an arrogant, condescending attititude towards
> Java.
>
> ^^^^^
> _anything_