Java cage rattling
Aug 2nd, 2006 by Phil Dawes
Joel Spolski rattles the java cage a second time, illustrating that:
- Java is really bad at functional programming
- Functional programming is really important for utilizing massively parallel hardware
In particular I like the way Spolski uses Javascript for his examples. The conception of this language has always been a bit of an enigma to me, especially given its timing: As far as I can see the netscape people managed to sneak a pretty good language under the idiot radar by slapping the word ‘java’ on the front of the name and showcasing a crappy C-style ‘for’ looping construct to make it look a bit like java.
Then they added dynamic typing, higher order functions, closures, prototype based OO, eval…
Java is an imperative OO language and should not be compared to functional languages.
I think that’s the point of the article: pure “Java programmers” are only a step up from VB weenies
and many have no concept of functional languages except that “they’re a bit hard to write in”. And as for declarative/logical languages…
Blimey - if that’s not a troll I don’t know what is!