There was a posting on Javalobby today that interested me. It was basically in response to a post by Yakov Fain, a well known java ‘opinionist’ (my term), where he basically said he didnt want anything new in the Java Language. At a very high level I understood where he was coming from, but in practicality it was something that bugged me… and I lost any interest I may have had (and it wasn’t much – I’m not big on technology evangelists for more reasons than one. Thats another post for another day, though) in anything he had to say. Anyways, this posting on javalobby was right on. I remember when Java was the new thing… every new thought was a breakthrough.
I disagree with Yakov and the people who support his post. Improvements can be made to the language… features should be added. If you want to argue the merits of the inclusion of any specific feature that’s one thing, but to basically say leave it as it is is a totally different statement.
That would mean that subsequent versions are bug fixes only. I, for one, want added features… so long as the community feels they are valuable.
Why not argue the means by which a new feature is added if you’re worried about past issues with other languages rather than just saying to leave it out. It reminds me of the COBOL and RPG programmers I have to deal with daily. There is no way that the language should sit still and stay simple as he says. It needs new concepts to keep it on top. Generics are awesome… closures have promise… the new property proposals COULD be great. If influential people in the Java world share Yakov’s opinion then I guess I will start to look at Ruby and other emerging languages hard.
mikewitters.com 
Leave a comment