"Java was slow and immature in the 90s but it was a huge step up from PHP, Perl"
Perl was a mature, full-featured and very useful programming language when the earliest versions of Java rolled around. Java relied on the bloated, super slow JVM, was super buggy, and really did not add any value. The "write once, run anywhere" hype turned out to be just that. So I really don't see how it was a "huge step up" in comparison. More like a huge step down.
Nevertheless, perl is pretty much not used anymore, except for small scripts. Java still happily lives on server and inside larger projects, where the hell I would not wanted to use something like perl.
I wasn't talking about now. I was replying to api's assertion that "Java was slow and immature in the 90s but it was a huge step up from PHP, Perl...".
So that's about how Java was back then, and whether it was a "huge step up" from Perl. It wasn't.
Yes, Java improved greatly over time, and yes it's more popular now. Whether its current popularity is deserved or not is debatable, and a separate issue.
Re:Why the Best Doesn't Always Win (1996)
by icebraining on Monday July 31, 2017 @05:14PM
(#14895947)
I think that's missing the forest for the trees. Java had large companies investing heavily on it, which is why it already had a JIT in version 2, whereas Perl 6 languished for a decade. People can see where the trains are going, not just where they are now.
Smart phones are disappointing in a lot of ways but they're a big improvement over J2ME flip phones, dumb phones, and PDAs.
The problem with the Amiga was AFIAK Commodore's management. They should have divested themselves of all the old stuff and doubled down on marketing and supporting Amiga. Instead they kept lots of irons in the fire, wasted a lot of money, and in the end got killed by the IBM PC platform juggernaut. I wonder if the clear superiority of their tech made them over-confident.