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Re: Java / Java on the Mac in January / JavaScript
Most programmers use C and C++.
I've read that there are things Lisp programmers can do with Lisp that are
impossible to do with C or C++. Is C or C++ (a fancy term for Macro-11)
and their programming environment's what you mean by 1960's technology?
I find myself writing papers using Lisp code as illustrations, even though
i say the same kind of thing could be done in another language, perhaps
with a bit more work. This is because i can prototype my ideas out of
things that are in Lisp, and the semantics of those things are well enough
defined. If i wrote the paper using examples from C++, say, i'd wind up
doing a lot more handwaving.
A good example is a recent C++ column by Andrew Kronig in JOOP. The
article is basically about how to simulate closures in C++. He spends
about 4 pages showing how hard it is and concludes that most of his friends
don't program this way very often. My friends do, but they program in Lisp.
...
My point is, programmers now don't seem to value writing extensible,
readable and debuggable code that is efficient. Interpreted Java programs
would need to be efficient and tightly written and that seems to go against
the trend of programmers not writing tight code.
Interpreters need not be slow. While i don't have any performance results
on Java, what i've read suggests that Java was designed for efficient
implementation including minimum overhead byte code interpretation and
conversion of byte codes to machine code.
k
References: