Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Criticism of Java" in English language version.
The Pitfalls of Java as a First Programming Language [...] Students found it hard to write programs that did not have a graphic interface, had no feeling for the relationship between the source program and what the hardware would actually do, and (most damaging) did not understand the semantics of pointers at all, which made the use of C in systems programming very challenging.
True rectangular multidimensional arrays are the most important data structures for scientific and engineering computing.
...it is not possible in Java to have arrays with more than 231 entries...
So far, the "write-once, run-everywhere" promise of Java hasn't come true. The bulk of a Java application will migrate between most Java implementations, but taking advantage of a VM-specific feature causes porting problems.
...it is not possible in Java to have arrays with more than 231 entries...
It's bad enough that JavaSchools fail to weed out the kids who are never going to be great programmers, which the schools could justifiably say is not their problem. Industry, or, at least, the recruiters-who-use-grep, are surely clamoring for Java to be taught. But JavaSchools also fail to train the brains of kids to be adept, agile, and flexible enough to do good software design
Why does Joel pick out pointers and recursion as the two gatekeeper concepts? Because he found them difficult? As Tim Bray points out, Java is perfectly adept at recursion, and concurrency may be a more important and difficult concept to master in any case. The emphasis on recursion in Lisp languages is a bit over the top, and doesn't carry into other programming cultures. Why do people think it's so important for software engineering? Don't get me wrong: I love recursion when it's the right tool for the job, but that is just not that often to warrant Joel's focus on it as a fundamental concept.
While we're hunting around for tough concepts that separate the men from the boys, what about the one that got Joel and I into a tussle two years ago: Exceptions. He doesn't like them, basically, because they confuse him. Is this any different than a Java guy not liking pointers? Yes, you can avoid exceptions and use status returns, but you can also try really hard to avoid pointers. Does that mean you should? So Joel's got the concepts he likes (pointers and recursion), and laments their decline, but doesn't seem to notice that there are newer concepts that he's never caught on to, which the Java kiddies feel at home with.
True rectangular multidimensional arrays are the most important data structures for scientific and engineering computing.
...it is not possible in Java to have arrays with more than 231 entries...
...it is not possible in Java to have arrays with more than 231 entries...
So far, the "write-once, run-everywhere" promise of Java hasn't come true. The bulk of a Java application will migrate between most Java implementations, but taking advantage of a VM-specific feature causes porting problems.
The Pitfalls of Java as a First Programming Language [...] Students found it hard to write programs that did not have a graphic interface, had no feeling for the relationship between the source program and what the hardware would actually do, and (most damaging) did not understand the semantics of pointers at all, which made the use of C in systems programming very challenging.
