RE>Java (slightly off topic) 4/21/96
It is refreshing to see a serious contender against and improvement on C/C++.
>pop11 (ie garbage collector, no "bare" pointers). Plus it is pure OO.
I don't want to argue about what "pure" is, but it is significant that Java is
not objects all the way down. As you mention it has a bunch of types that were
included for efficiency reasons but which make coding tedious. One has to
translate ints into Integers, booleans into Booleans, etc,, and one has to be
very sensitive about whether a method expects an object or just a type. I
haven't used Pop-11 since Objectclass has become fully integrated, so I don't
know what kind of problems new Pop users are having on that front.
I'd really love to see an implementation of Java in Poplog. To the Poplog
team: Produce and market a good, pure Java development environment. WHen you
have java-ites using your Java, lure them to the superior Pop-11; and/or
change the syntax and a bit of the semantics of Pop-11 a bit to make it
sufficiently like Java to lure the Java users. Create Super-Java (Pop-11 that
looks like Java), thereby making the world a better place to live, and making
money.
Jon, I'm not as big on "small" as you are. Static typing, single inheritance,
method dispatching based on a single argument, and the absence of incremental
compilation and macros do not make programming easier. I think Pop-11
illustrates that you can have "big" features while being "small".
Dreaming on.
Luc
PS please keep me posted if there's something happening on the Pop11 front in
Canada.
|