Eric Lippert on Why Programming Languages Turn Out the Way They Do

Re:Eric Lippert on Why Programming Languages Turn Out the Wa... by nostrademons on Sunday October 03, 2021 @03:39PM (#28739904)

Also remember Stroustrop's Law: "There are two types of programming languages. Those that nobody likes, and those that nobody uses."

To my eye Java gets a lot more usage, particularly outside of a single company's ecosystem. Some of that is because of company cultures, like Eric mentioned. Microsoft is all about increasing the value of their platform, while Sun's DNA is about open software systems and ecosystems. But the consequence is that Java is used in a lot of places that are not directly aligned with Sun's software stack or corporate vision, and it grew faster, and had more cooks in the kitchen, and as a result the overall platform is significantly less cohesive.

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Re:Eric Lippert on Why Programming Languages Turn Out the Wa... by txdv on Sunday October 03, 2021 @04:12PM (#28740141)

Sun has ceased to exist a decade ago

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Re:Eric Lippert on Why Programming Languages Turn Out the Wa... by nostrademons on Sunday October 03, 2021 @05:49PM (#28740808)

Most of the technical decisions that led to the incoherence the article is talking about were made from 1995-2005, when Java was still very much under Sun's control. It's also telling that Java is still very much in use despite being owned by Oracle for the last decade. Would C# have much usage at all if Microsoft went bankrupt?

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Re:Eric Lippert on Why Programming Languages Turn Out the Wa... by pjmlp on Sunday October 03, 2021 @05:37PM (#28740720)

The Java team and everyone else that seats at JEP table is largely the same group of people.

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Re:Eric Lippert on Why Programming Languages Turn Out the Wa... by x0x0 on Sunday October 03, 2021 @04:24PM (#28740240)

c# also got 3-5 years of lessons from java -- first release 1996 vs 2001.

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