From: Dave Thomas <Dave@...>
Date: 2002-08-23T00:06:45+09:00
Subject: Re: A Repeat: New Language After Ruby?

tran55555@yahoo.com (Email55555) writes:

> Is it just learn the syntax of language ?  It is much much
> difference depend on your definition of "learn".  Think about this,
> learn java language, I think you can spend a little bit of time to
> learn java syntax.  But if you want learn the entire API, Oops, that
> take may-be not in one year ( J2SE, J2EE ).

Learning a language means coming to understand it: the philosophy, the
idioms, and the "way things are done". Doing that gives insight,
insight that can often be applied in different arenas.

With Java, I see little point in learning all the libraries if Java is
simply one of your "languages of the year". The incremental benefit of
studying the 804th API set is marginal.

However, it _is_ interesting to study the Java libraries at a higher
level. One of the things I learned from Java is the entire concept of
library-based programming. Libraries are pervasive in Java, to the
eternal detriment of the Java community (and computing at
large). Developers writing java are pretty much taught not to write
applications, but instead to write libraries, and then glue these
together with a minimal application core. The result: remarkably
bloated applications, full of code that's never used, and full of
patterns because "that's the way to code libraries". Josh Bloch's
Effective java is a great book, but it is redolent with library
thinking--write these methods because someone may need them...

So (ending my rant), I think there's much to learn from all languages,
and some of it is far outside the actual syntax of the language
itself. In the case of Java, the sheer size of the libraries, and
therefore the barrier to learning they present, it itself an
opportunity to reflect and learn.


Cheers


Dave