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

[Daniel Pittman]

Sam Couter <sam at couter.id.au> writes:
> Daniel Pittman <daniel at rimspace.net> wrote:
>> You are aware, Sam, that there are a whole slew of systems that use garbage
>> collection, and which /don't/ require this same preallocation, right?
>
> Java doesn't (have to) preallocate. It just doesn't free memory again.
>
>> Lisp was generally running the generational garbage collector based on memory
>> allocations some thirty years ago, giving good, solid results without having
>> to either preallocate the heap, or run into memory pressure first.
>
> I didn't know that. Yet again, Lisp has beaten the rest of the world by
> thirty years.

When people ask me how to be a better programmer, these days, I recommend
learning Forth (or PostScript), and at least reading the Common Lisp spec; it
gives you an idea what the scope of Lisp was, and what it could do, back in
the '80s.

Then you can look at your current environment and realise that it can do the
same things... thirty years later.

If it makes you feel better...

>> Surely I must be misunderstanding you, right?
>
> Partly, I think, but I also think I've been showing my ignorance. I've
> also realised I must sound like a raving Java fanboy and I hate that so
> I'll stop.

...Java has done great things for the world: it make a JIT compiler a
legitimate choice in business, not /just/ in the academic world where quality
still counts.

It also drove garbage collection forward leaps and bounds[1], especially
things like real-time garbage collectors; those pretty much entirely grew out
of Java making them, again, a real choice in business.

Regards,
        Daniel

Footnotes: 
[1]  Admittedly, in part because the first few cuts of their standard library
     were something of a garbage collector stress test, but hey. ;)

-- 
✣ Daniel Pittman            ✉ daniel at rimspace.net            ☎ +61 401 155 707
               ♽ made with 100 percent post-consumer electrons