[Tutor] Java and Python (was: Iterators)

[alan.gauld@bt.com]

> > Nope. Java is an overhyped phenomenon that is winning hearts
> > for some extremely nebulous reasons.
> Java seemed to have the center-piece of an UnMicrosoft campaign -
> or at least was marketed (implicitly, at least) as such.

Yes, thats what I meant :-)


> Isn't there something to a claim that Java has been a decent
> alternative where cross or multiple platform issues exist.

In practice no. Java is no more cross platform than well 
written C. In practice GNU software has been (and is!) 
available on many platforms without being written in Java. 
Just look at Python for that matter - all in C....

Java's portability is largely hype, in practice there is 
a lot of incompatibilities between JVMs and even between 
the same JVM on diffeent platforms.

> In the business world in which I interact, the AS400, for example, is
> a powerful presence. Java seems to have the potential of opening
> up that black box to a much wider development community.

Yes, but its largely misconception.
AS/4000's have had a full Posix library layer for years 
- at least 1992 - ie before Java came to town....

> crossplatform GUI's for example.  But that wasn't nearly as 
> true during Java's take-off.   

Again, I'm not sure that's true.
Visix did a cross platform GUI toolkit.
And Bristol allowed you to write Windows C code 
on X windows. There were several X windows ports 
for Windows and even DOS(DeskView X anyone?)
There were other options too XVT, TeleUse etc...
The big difference was they all cost (lots of) money!

> And in the interim Java seems to have achieved 
> enough of a critical mass of support from major 
> players like IBM and Oracle

Absolutely. At work we have gone (for server apps)
from 80% C++ about 5 years ago to 80% Java now. 

To pick up another point. I said in another mail that 
the cost of hardware could justify a rewrite in C++ 
that doesn't apply for Java since its generally a bigger 
resource hog than Python! But the maintenance bill does
have some bearing since the maintenance teams are only 
trained in Java and C++ (and the mainframers in COBOL).

Alan G.