From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: (from weis@localhost) by pauillac.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) id JAA16934 for caml-red; Wed, 10 Jan 2001 09:27:08 +0100 (MET) Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by pauillac.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id SAA17702 for ; Tue, 9 Jan 2001 18:14:30 +0100 (MET) Received: from mrwall.kal.com (mrwall.kal.com [194.193.14.236]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.11.1/8.10.0) with SMTP id f09HETL23726 for ; Tue, 9 Jan 2001 18:14:29 +0100 (MET) Received: from mrwall.kal.com [194.193.14.236] (HELO localhost) by mrwall.kal.com (AltaVista Mail V2.0J/2.0J BL25J listener) id 0000_0045_3a5b_4773_8f03; Tue, 09 Jan 2001 17:16:35 +0000 Received: from somewhere by smtpxd Message-ID: <3145774E67D8D111BE6E00C0DF418B663AA6EC@nt.kal.com> From: Dave Berry To: John Max Skaller , Markus Mottl Cc: OCAML Subject: RE: JIT-compilation for OCaml? Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2001 17:18:34 -0000 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.0.1460.8) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Sender: weis@pauillac.inria.fr This view seems extreme to me. Certainly the Java type system has faults -- lack of generics being one, lack of enumerated types another, and various other points as well. But surely Unicode is a useful de facto standard? Using C syntax was a strong point -- it made the language familiar to many people. IMO Java syntax does avoid many of the worst aspects of C syntax (e.g. pointers). It's surely portable: JVMs run on many systems. It certainly isn't slow to compile, and a previous poster suggested that with modern compilers run-time performance is not too bad. You can access C or C++ functions from Java using JNI (although you seem to be in two minds as to whether C compatibility is desirable or irrelevant). And this omits it's plus points, especially its utility in net programming. Its security model is not the last word, but it's better than C, C++ or Eiffel! And its use of byte code ensures portability of compiled apps. Dave. -----Original Message----- From: John Max Skaller [mailto:skaller@ozemail.com.au] Sent: Tuesday, January 09, 2001 6:50 To: Markus Mottl It has a serious faulty static type system, idiotic object orientation, no generics, isn't compatible with C, uses the worst features of C/C++ syntax, is inefficient to compile, load, and run, doesn't interface well, uses Unicode instead of ISO-10646, has a hodge podge library, is less portable than C, C++ or Eiffel, stuffed up finalisation ... Surely, Java is the worst modern language around. It is an inexcusably travesty, when so much good theory is around, and C compatibility is not required.