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D - Some food for thought

reply "Matthew" <matthew stlsoft.org> writes:
http://home.pacbell.net/pyared/musings/ponjava.html

The line most salient to D might be "A lesson that Microsoft has learned
well is that for API's to be toolable, they need to be developed
concurrently with the tool and both the API and tool should depend on easily
externalizable metadata. Java API's were always written on the merits of the
API's themselves, and subsequent tools were predominantly code generators
shunned by programmers"

Makes us think about D, no?
Mar 16 2004
parent reply "Matthew" <matthew stlsoft.org> writes:
Another priceless quote: "Java is horrific at processing text since it can't
manipulate strings directly"

:-)

"Matthew" <matthew stlsoft.org> wrote in message
news:c37glc$18m4$1 digitaldaemon.com...

 http://home.pacbell.net/pyared/musings/ponjava.html

 The line most salient to D might be "A lesson that Microsoft has learned
 well is that for API's to be toolable, they need to be developed
 concurrently with the tool and both the API and tool should depend on


easily

 externalizable metadata. Java API's were always written on the merits of


the

 API's themselves, and subsequent tools were predominantly code generators
 shunned by programmers"

 Makes us think about D, no?
Mar 16 2004
parent reply Ben Hinkle <bhinkle4 juno.com> writes:
Matthew wrote:

 Another priceless quote: "Java is horrific at processing text since 


it can't

 manipulate strings directly"


true true. though in some sense Java has three "strings": String,
StringBuffer, and char[]. It's a pity the String and StringBuffer
methods don't have char[] versions... oh wait... that's D. ;-)


 :-)

 "Matthew" <matthew stlsoft.org> wrote in message
 news:c37glc$18m4$1 digitaldaemon.com...


http://home.pacbell.net/pyared/musings/ponjava.html

The line most salient to D might be "A lesson that Microsoft has learned
well is that for API's to be toolable, they need to be developed
concurrently with the tool and both the API and tool should depend on
 easily
externalizable metadata. Java API's were always written on the merits of
 the
API's themselves, and subsequent tools were predominantly code generators
shunned by programmers"

Makes us think about D, no?




Yes, interesting read. Metadata aimed at tools is cool and I can
see the argument that long-term it will grow in importance, but
personally as an Emacs junky that ignores metadata it, well,
annoys me when I run into an API that is only usable (not in
the "it doesn't work" sense but in the "who would want to work
with it" sense) in a GUI-builder.
Of course I can't think of any examples off the top of my head.
Does binding a language to a set of tools limit the life-time
of the language?
Plus there is the whole issue that D also targets system programming
where metadata just takes up time/space.

-Ben
Mar 16 2004
next sibling parent reply "Walter" <walter digitalmars.com> writes:
"Ben Hinkle" <bhinkle4 juno.com> wrote in message
news:c38gkt$30eh$2 digitaldaemon.com...

 Matthew wrote:
  > Another priceless quote: "Java is horrific at processing text since
 it can't
  > manipulate strings directly"

 true true. though in some sense Java has three "strings": String,
 StringBuffer, and char[]. It's a pity the String and StringBuffer
 methods don't have char[] versions... oh wait... that's D. ;-)


One thing I really wanted to do with D was not have Vector, String, and core
arrays be different things.
Mar 19 2004
parent "Phill" <phill pacific.net.au> writes:
What is the equivalent of Java's Vector in D?

Phill.

"Walter" <walter digitalmars.com> wrote in message
news:c3fe2g$2n56$1 digitaldaemon.com...

 "Ben Hinkle" <bhinkle4 juno.com> wrote in message
 news:c38gkt$30eh$2 digitaldaemon.com...

 Matthew wrote:
  > Another priceless quote: "Java is horrific at processing text since
 it can't
  > manipulate strings directly"

 true true. though in some sense Java has three "strings": String,
 StringBuffer, and char[]. It's a pity the String and StringBuffer
 methods don't have char[] versions... oh wait... that's D. ;-)


 One thing I really wanted to do with D was not have Vector, String, and


core

 arrays be different things.
Mar 19 2004
prev sibling parent "Achilleas Margaritis" <axilmar b-online.gr> writes:
 true true. though in some sense Java has three "strings": String,
 StringBuffer, and char[]. It's a pity the String and StringBuffer
 methods don't have char[] versions... oh wait... that's D. ;-)


And what is the problem ? how does three "strings" hinder text processing ?

The article was a load of BS. Why can't Java process text like PHP ? Because
the libraries do not exist, not because the language isn't fit to do so. Why
XML has to be transformed to objects ? because in Java, "everything has to
be an object". Why "everything has to be an object?". I don't know, don't
ask me, ask Sun. For me, not one shoe fits every foot, but to claim that a
language will dominate simply because of one attribute it has (text
processing, for example), does not make sense.

The article says "no other platform except Windows/x86 and Linux/x86". Then
why bother with XML in the first place ? why not do binary data in the
native x86 format ? obviously, there is a reason about it: the vast range of
non-Windows/non-Linux/non-x86 machines, from the top (clusters/multi-CPU
equipment) to handheld devices (mobile phones/palmtops etc).

Other: "XML is unstructured". Ha ha...XML *is* structured by definition.

This guy is a joke.
Mar 20 2004