Java syndrome By Seditionary in Seditionary's Diary Wed Nov 10, 2004 at 12:55:43 AM EST Tags: User Diary (all tags)
	After a full day of work today, my evening consisted of: Having some good beer at a professor's expense. Crashing an Association for Women in Computing meeting. Working on a Java assignment for a few hours. You might think that points (1) and (2) suggest a good time and would lead to an interesting story or two, but unfortunately that is not the case tonight. Instead, I will bore you with thoughts inspired by (3).

About two years ago I got into programming Python, and since then I've not been able to stand Java. Working with Java tonight has reminded me of why. I think I can also see why people get stuck in the Java mindset and have difficulty letting go and embracing programming languages that are actually useful. When working in Java, you're constrained by a lot of rigid but well-defined rules. In order to be at all effective in expressing yourself, you have to become very clever and creative. As you finally achieve this effectiveness, after days and days of frustration, you begin to feel a fondness for the language and you have no desire to simply let go of all the tricks and techniques that you learned or invented to make Java tolerable. You've submitted to the Java way and, because of this, now have an emotional investment in the language. Yet, because of this investment, you lose sight of the fact that it took you 100 hours to implement your project instead of the 10 that it would have taken in a language like Python. The resulting code is also about 10 times longer and 10 times as difficult to read, and you're going to have a hell of a time reusing it. I believe this effect is comparable to Stockholm syndrome. Java is so restrictive in its rules and dominating in its philosophies that, like a teller in a bank robbery, you are forced to subjugate your will to Java's design. You do this, just so you can accomplish something non-trivial in Java, and at this point you are broken. You become yet another Java programmer, unfathomably defending and advocating a language that steals your time and your ability to express yourself. I call this the Java syndrome, although in decades past it has occurred with languages such as Pascal, C, C++, Ada, and so forth. Fortunately I snapped out of that reverie years ago. Thank goodness for languages that are actually designed to do what programming languages were invented for: enabling a programmer to express his will to a machine. Being able to express what I need to by itself is no longer good enough for me. Given enough time and effort, I could express anything using a language like Brainfuck. But why should I bother? Today I only care about how concisely and correctly a language allows me to express myself, and any other languages are just wasting my time.

Poll

Given my druthers, I would program using: Python 25% Java 18% Perl 3% C 12% C++ 6% C# 0% Ada 0% PHP 0% Ruby 0% Haskell 9% Basic 6% Pascal 3% Assembly 6% English 6% Other: write-in 3% Votes: 32 Results | Other Polls

Related Links

Associatio n for Women in Computing Stockholm syndrome Brainfuck Seditionary's Diary