[clug] Why isn't Java popular on the Linux Desktop?

[Daniel Pittman]

Sam Couter <sam at couter.id.au> writes:
> Daniel Pittman <daniel at rimspace.net> wrote:
>> Generally speaking, that same smoothness follows into other language bindings,
>> although I have never tried Qt/Java[2], which I feel speaks volumes about the
>> good API design that Trolltech put into the language.
>
> I haven't tried Java bindings for Qt before, but I've just added it to
> my list of things to track down and try.

I don't know if the niceness would come through.  I hope so, though.  The
biggest things I found were that the widgets, and especially layout widgets,
just worked, without excess fussing ... and that the API, generally, did what
you wanted without getting in the way.

>> We have, here at work, some 100K-line projects that beg to differ.
>
> You're a braver man than I. Or maybe I'm just not smart enough. I need
> something equivalent to Eclipse or NetBeans.

Perl can get very messy, and it takes some discipline to keep things working
and modular.  This is especially true of older Perl code — Perl with Catalyst,
Moose and DBIx::Class is a different universe to some of the older options.

It is probably also, in part, because we are one of the big Perl shops, and we
do put a lot of effort into getting, and keeping, the best people.  That makes
a huge difference in *any* language. :)

>> Our experiences obviously differ significantly; one of the reasons we use Perl
>> here is that it provides a very broad, but sensibly managed and easy to
>> integrate library of things.
>> 
>> Now, sure, a non-trivial portion of CPAN is crap, but at least it is there in
>> one place where you can go, not scattered around the Internet at random, or,
>> y'know, missing entirely.
>
> In the Java world we have Maven, which helps with some of the problems.

Really?  I must go and look at that again.  It seems to do, and be, a lot more
than I thought it was. :)

Regards,
        Daniel

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