Java at 30: The Genius Behind the Code That Changed Tech

Re:Java at 30: The Genius Behind the Code That Changed Tech by dotancohen on Friday May 16, 2025 @06:11PM (#44010221)

  > I can run basically any Perl code back to Perl 4 (March 1991) on Perl 5.40.2 which is current.

Yes, but can you _read_ it?

I'm only half joking. Perl has so many ways to do things, many of them obscure but preferable for specific cases. It's often a write-only language if you can't get ahold of the dev who wrote whatever script you're trying to debug.

I wonder if modern LLMs could actually help with that.

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Re:Java at 30: The Genius Behind the Code That Changed Tech by johnisgood on Friday May 16, 2025 @06:31PM (#44010345)

> I wonder if modern LLMs could actually help with that.

From experience, they can.

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Re:Java at 30: The Genius Behind the Code That Changed Tech by fuzztester on Friday May 16, 2025 @09:38PM (#44011388)

>Yes, but can you _read_ it?

Java was marketed (at least in its early days) as a WORA language - WRITE ONCE RUN ANYWHERE.

Perl was unmarketed as a WORM language - WRITE ONCE READ MANY (TIMES). ;)

jk, i actually like perl somewhat.

but I think Larry and team went somewhat overboard with that human-style linguistics stuff that they applied to perl.

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Re:Java at 30: The Genius Behind the Code That Changed Tech by cestith on Tuesday May 20, 2025 @03:09PM (#44044836)

I can. Some of it by some developers I can read far more easily than others.

Can you read arbitrary code written by developers from around the world in PL/1, or Ada, Forth, APL, or even C++? Big languages have lots of syntax choices, yes. It doesn’t need to be abused.

Even C has an obfuscated code contest that’s been going on for decades.

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