Java Sucks

2009-04-24T20:34:00.000-07:00

Here's where Java actually takes something cool and makes it suck:

Python is cool. Jython sucks because it's missing key language features like generators (a.k.a. the yield statement.) Lame. IronPython was able to implement generators on the .Net runtime. Why is the JVM so deficient?

2004-12-28T01:19:00.000-08:00

Java hides the socket handle. How cool!

It's impossible to get the socket handle from a Java socket. How freakin' lame. It would be just one more method on Java's socket class, but I guess that would be 'impure.' Whatever.

Here's the whole sad story:
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.lang.java.help/browse_thread/thread/b6b235290b016084/b085116ea9b5fafd#b085116ea9b5fafd

With no good work-arounds, the best solution this programmer could come up with was to use C++.

2004-10-18T22:08:00.000-07:00

Found a bug in the java compiler?

Just wait 3 weeks to "take a number." Unbelievable. Yes, that means after three weeks, sun will assign your bug a number. Who knows when they'll fix it.

This code:



  final String name = false ? "Heinz" : null;

  System.out.println(name);

prints "Heinz."

And the funniest part is that the author of this post asks everyone not to be too hard on Sun, because "they are overloaded with bug reports as it is."

2004-10-18T21:59:00.000-07:00

Java is awesome because it's not like C++

No, wait, Java is awesome because it has all these new features like generics, enumerated types, and varags. Wait, those have all been in C++ for years. Why would Java want to bring in all these bad things?

Either way, Java sucks.

Here a Java lover complains that Java is becoming too much like C++.

2004-08-31T21:39:00.000-07:00

Garbage Collection Sucks

Here is the story of a poor soul who just needs to display 200 labels. And what does Java do, allocate 40 megabytes and never free it, naturally.

http://groups.google.com/groups?dq=&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&threadm=1vgps6oteirco%24.a4bq78r09mww%24.dlg%4040tude.net&prev=/groups%3Fhl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26group%3Dcomp.lang.java.help

The funny thing is, garbage collection works very well in many other languages, such as C#, Python, and Lisp. What is it about Java that makes garbage collection so consistently suck across all platforms, virtual machines, and compilers?

2004-08-31T00:39:00.000-07:00

The Java Concept Technology Map

When your map looks like a ball of string, maybe its time to reconsider your design?
Nah.

2004-06-23T21:55:00.000-07:00

Does "test" == "test"? Maybe. It's a "really complicated issue."

Once again, Java forces you to understand the details of the virtual machine implementation to answer this question. Here's a message to pass along to the Java designers: if you have to understand the underlying implementation, then the abstraction sucks. Therefore, java sucks.

Here's the explanation:

This is really a complicated issue. The easiest answer is to recognize
that you're right about one thing: == compares two references to
determine whether they refer to the same object, but doesn't pay
attention to whether the objects themselves are "equal".

As for the various examples, the complexity arises from the JVM's String
pool, which is is required to maintain. If the same string literal is
encountered twice in your code, the same object will be referenced both
times, because each time the resulting String is obtained from this
String pool. So, for example:

"ab" == "ab" is true

String a = "ab", b = "ab";
a == b is also true;

String a = "a", b = "b";
(a + b) == "ab" is NOT true because (a + b) is not a literal, so is
not taken from the String pool but created at
runtime.

To further complicate the matter, there are certain String
concatenations that are required to be implemented within the bytecode
compiler rather than the JVM. So the following:

final String a = "a", b = "b";
(a + b) == "ab" is true again!

This last example differs from the third only in the qualifier 'final'
for the variable declarations. That's because the word 'final' gives

The whole sad story is here.

2004-06-16T21:51:00.000-07:00

Want a string with exactly 20 'x's in it?

No problem, either write class definition with a static method and 5 lines of code, or "get a real text editor."

My favorite part of this thread is how people actually benchmarked different 5-line solutions to see which is fastest.

Read the whole story at:
http://groups.google.com/groups?dq=&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&threadm=f091d05n79mhgr27jetogn5og0a12gi670%404ax.com&prev=/groups%3Fhl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26group%3Dcomp.lang.java.help

2004-06-13T22:05:00.000-07:00

Build it yourself with Java!

Love to build everything from scratch? Love to re-invent the wheel? Java is the language for you!

In this article, a programmer needed a register and authenticate library for JSP. He concludes that using either PHP or ASP, he could download a package in ten minutes and quickly have something working. But for JSP, there was no such solution. Where are all those free-software programmers when you need them? Not using Java, apprently.

2004-06-03T21:51:00.000-07:00

No operator overloading, <cough> except for strings.</cough>

I don't know how the absence of a useful construct can be claimed as a language feature, but none the less one often cited feature of java that it doesn't have operator overloading.

If operator overloading is Bad (capitalized for religious reference), then why did the java designers feel the need to overload the plus operator for strings? They realized in order to have a useful string class, the needed to overload +. But of course, you won't need to overload any operators to build useful classes for yourself.

2004-05-24T22:06:00.000-07:00

There are no pointers in Java!

Then can someone please explain to me why there is a NullPointerException?

2004-05-24T21:51:00.000-07:00

Garbage Collection is Great!

Except when you want to free a system resource in the destructor. Then you're screwed, cause you never know if or when the destructor will be called.

My favorite part of this whole thing is that I often here Java advocates talk of "real garbage collection" used in Java vs. reference counting used in scripting languages like perl, python, ruby, etc. "Real garbage collection," has terrible processor cache hit characteristics (in other words, your app runs really slow) and is non-deterministic. At least reference counting is deterministic, has excellent processor cache hit characteristics, and handles the "free a system resource" problem beautifully. Yes, I know about the pointer-cycle problem.

But, the best part of the following newsgroup post is how it demonstates the "if it's not in Java, it either must be bad, or doesn't exist" philosophy.

dpr wrote:
> I hava a class in wich I initialize a resource like this:
>
> class Dummy {
> static GlobalRessourceClass myGlobalRes;
> {
> // Static bloc initialisation
> myGlobalRes = AllocRessource();
> }
> };
>
> How can I do to free the ressource when the program exists ?

First of all, are you sure you need to? It's extremely rare to find a
resource on any modern operating system that isn't automatically
reclaimed when a process exits.

And what is this extremely rare resource?

Actually the allocation of ressource results, at the end, in sending a
initialization command to a specific hardware. I need to send a
"terminate" command.

Lesson learned: Don't use java to talk to hardware. And since all software talks to hardware, just use java in theory land.

The whole story is here.

2004-05-24T21:44:00.000-07:00

Try Generics! They're like C++ templates, except they suck!

Ironic how one of the aims of Java was to reduce the amount of unsafe casting in code.

Here's the story of one poor soul trying to figure out generics:

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&threadm=scj4b05sf1fmqffrv5p7shq8qcfvqc5gac%404ax.com&rnum=1&prev=/&frame=on

2004-05-23T14:13:00.000-07:00

Lots and Lots of Acronyms and Buzzwords!

Got a problem, you can't solve? No worries, use an acronym or buzzword to solve it! Nevermind actually using the technology the acronym stands for, because that would take months and months to "do the right way." Instead, just tell your boss you are using J(insert any two random letters of the alphabet) and he should walk away with dazed look on his face. If he comes back, say you are using (pick any island or city in Indonesia) and that will keep him from asking any more questions. If he's really persistent, I recommend making up some coffee related names, like "Bean-achino," or "CafeTransactions."

Choose from any of the following real names:
J2SE
EJB
Servlets
JSP
JDBC
JTA
JTS
JMS
JNDI
JavaMail
JAXP
JAAS
HotSpot
J2EE
Jakarta
Beans

2004-05-17T20:22:00.000-07:00

Write more code with Java

Love typing the same string over and over again? Excellent, then Java is the language for you. And don't worry, there are no ugly #defines to save you keystrokes. Everything is explicit and bloated:

Take this newsgroup posting:

Mike Phelps wrote:
> In the following snippet:
>
> .....
> String item1 = "hello";
> String item2 = "world";
> String[] items = new String[2];
> for(int i=0; i> //populate items[i] with contents of item1 or item2 or .....
> items[i] = ????????
> // not possible to do
> // if (i == 1){item[i] = item1;} else {item[i] = items2}
> // or items = {item1, item2}
> // in case you wonder why doing something so stupid, it is for
> // testing purpose and there is in fact a lot more than 2 strings
>
> }
>
> Does anybody see an easy solution?

No. AFAIK, this is not possible. The reason: java is not an interpreted
language with an "evaluate" command. At compile time you must be able to
identify the exact variable name (statically; not dynamically using a
piece of code).

A way to solve this problem is to transform the code that defines the
String objetcs:
String item1 = "hello";
String item2 = "world";
...
String itemN = "foobar";
String[] items = // Problem

Becomes:
ArrayList stringItems = new ArrayList();
stringItems.add("hello");
stringItems.add("world");
...
stringItems.add("foobar");
String[] items = (String[])stringItems.toArray(new String[] {});

You'll notice the first and last lines stay the same regardless of the
number of strings. Also note, that the index numbers of the String objects
"itemN" are dropped, so make sure you add the strings in sequence.

How I love to type stringItems.add() again and again!

What might this look like in a real language, say Python:
stuff = [ ['hello', 'world'], ['java', 'sucks'] ]

2004-05-11T18:55:00.000-07:00

Java Runs Everywhere!

More specifically, everywhere that someone is running the exact same JDK version, on the exact same operating system, with the exact same CLASSPATH.

Here are the lamentings of someone hapless enough to attempt to code on Windows XP and run on Mac:
http://groups.google.com/groups?dq=&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&threadm=scott-3F6789.16202810052004%40news.west.cox.net&prev=/groups%3Fhl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26oe%3DUTF-8%26group%3Dcomp.lang.java.help

2004-05-06T21:32:00.000-07:00

Java is fast!

How fast? Listen to a Java advocate:

In straight integer performance without libraries, Java now is fast, if you also ignore startup time.

So just make sure your java program does only integer arithmetic, without any libraries. And don't actually start the program because that would incur start-up time.

2004-04-28T21:19:00.000-07:00

Java makes connecting to the internet easy!

So easy, in fact, it will connect even when you don't ask it to.
My favorite solution:
get a decent firewall. :-)

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&threadm=521673fd.0404220824.66fcbc27%40posting.google.com&rnum=1&prev=/groups%3Fq%3Djava.exe%2Bfirewall%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26oe%3DUTF-8%26scoring%3Dd%26selm%3D521673fd.0404220824.66fcbc27%2540posting.google.com%26rnum%3D1

2004-04-28T21:05:00.001-07:00

Have you heard of the hot new Java technology from Sun - the JES? Finally, the one Java service that solves all those nagging problems that make Java unsuitable for any application attempted. The JES stands for the Java Excuse Stack, and every Java programmer knows it.

Java programmers should employ the Java excuse stack anytime they're faced with an actual C++ developer, for example, or by an angry customer or fellow developer who actually tries to use a piece of Jaba written by somebody else. Basically, perform a pop on the stack until a) the stack is empty - in which case you need to move to Amsterdam or b) a stack element satisfies and/or confuses the inquirer to a sufficient degree.

1. You aren't supposed to use Java for that.
2. Java has no concept of that in it's architecture therefore it doesn't actually exist.
3. C++ had pointers, and they're bad, very bad.
4. We'll just get some open source to solve that.
5. Maybe we can open source our Java project that's radically over budget?
6. The project is late because we needed to refactor our code.
7. There was a problem with Tomcat inside Apache when running on JDK2.4.0.a if a configuration file at directory level 700 does not have -a100 in the root element. User error clearly.
8. I work in an IDE that sucks because Sun won't give Eclipse it's approval.
9. That's just part of garbage collection.

2004-04-28T00:05:00.000-07:00

Sun says Java Sucks

A few years out of date, but it's still a joy to read. I love it when "designers" blame the "implementers" for not implementing their vision correctly. Hmmm. Maybe the design just sucked?

http://www.internalmemos.com/memos/memodetails.php?memo_id=1321

2004-04-27T23:54:00.000-07:00

Want to remove a character from a string?

No worries. You have your choice of 17 lines of Java, 6 lines of Java that run in O(n^2) time, or a regular expression, a.k.a., not java.

http://groups.google.com/groups?dq=&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&threadm=r7vf80pachf73b3m164q45qfcattc0l20t%404ax.com&prev=/groups%3Fdq%3D%26num%3D25%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26oe%3DUTF-8%26group%3Dcomp.lang.java.help%26start%3D50

2004-04-27T23:37:00.002-07:00

Java Struts make life easier!

Look how much easier the "After" diagram is than the "Before" diagram. Why not try Java Struts today!

The whole story is at:
http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/java/library/j-struts/

2004-04-27T23:32:00.000-07:00

Want to find out how much available disk space you have?
You don't mind learning SNMP, do you?
Or how about filling up the whole disk and stopping when you get an error?

Unbelievable:
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&threadm=3cb3fdc0.1770012%40news.clara.net&rnum=10&prev=/groups%3Fq%3Djava%2Bdisk%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26oe%3DUTF-8%26selm%3D3cb3fdc0.1770012%2540news.clara.net%26rnum%3D10

2004-04-27T23:22:00.000-07:00

Here we go!

Just spent $5000 on a machine with 16 gigs of RAM? Too bad. The java garbage collector can't handle it:
http://www.javalobby.org/thread.jspa?messageID=91794264&threadID=12118&forumID=61