Category Image Java still makes my brain hurt 


 


People that know me know I'm a Smalltalk bigot. I love working with Smalltalk. Squeak is my favorite dialect. Probably VisualWorks is second favorite. Truth is I like LISP, Pascal and even PDP-11 assembler (writing device drivers in Macro-11, those were the days).

Recently someone was talking to me about some J2EE work. I secretly refer to it as "J Me-Too EE". I looked over some old Java materials I have. I've worked in Java before so I am familiar with the terrain. And I once managed a very successful Java development team. But you know, Java still makes my brain hurt. I think it's because I want cleaner objects. Or maybe it's just cleaner code. Hell, I know I'm a code-jockey. Read the code to see what's going on, don't waste your time asking a developer what supposed to be happening.

I recently came upon 2 quotes about Java that remind me that I'm not alone.
 
"If Java had true garbage collection, most programs would delete themselves upon execution."
- Robert Sewell

"Java is the most distressing thing to happen to computing since MS-DOS."
- Alan Kay 

The thing that's so frustrating about all this is that there are people that I know and respect deeply who love working with Java. There's certainly an abundance of opportunity out there for Java skills. In a truly reflective moment, I'm wondering why I struggle to love Java. Is it me? I've thought for many years now that Java was just another "Hoola-Hoop" in the technical world, and for many companies a sad distraction from the real work. But it's still here.

I once read that in the future Java will still be taught in Colleges. Not as technical subject matter, but as a marketing example.
 

Posted: Sunday - March 19, 2006 at 09:00 AM           |

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