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All the Perl that's Practical to Extract and Report

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I'm a Java lover! Look at me! Go Java! 13 Comments More | Login | Reply /

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  • When I think of scrottie code, these are the characteristics that come to mind:

    • minimal (so that it can run on your old hardware)
    • concise (for its own sake)
    • unusual (...your penchant for coroutines and byte code manipulation comes to mind)

    When I think of Java code, I think it's:

    • bloated
    • wordy
    • normal (in the worst way possible)

    That's why I find it unusual that someone like you would find reasons to like Java. But if you like it, whatever.

    I know that you don't actually code in it that much

    • "I know that you don't actually code in it that much. ;-)"

      That's key. I can take lots of stuff in small doses, and enjoy it. Just not PHP.

      When writing Java, I used to use kaffe and jikes. Both are pretty small, and both are open source and support my old, slow hardware. jikes is extremely fast. kaffe only does 1.1ish or 1.2ish, but at the time you had to program down to that version anyway to support MS's fuxored Java version they distributed with IE. And then compared to Flash, which was barely progr

      • It’s not the least bit out of place to worry about which classes can see which other classes and what kind of interfaces they’re presenting for each other.

        Yah [canonical.org].


        • No, actually... I intentionally avoided discussion of private, protected, public etc because of this essay. I said "interfaces" and "which classes can see each other", which is in reference not to hiding bits of themselves but simply who has references to who and what the basic topology of the application is. You can hardly invoke the "stay out of my livingroom not because I have a shotgun" argument to justify writing a God Object. Sometimes strong typing makes sense; aside from that, large projects need some design skills.

          Interfaces are a way of keeping straight, either in your own head or with the help of the language, which objects, as a cross-section of classes of objects, are going to define certain methods. Get this wrong and the program explodes. Don't put thought into it, and just as bad, assume you were born when a gift from God at sorting these things out when charges are strongly in favor of the opposite, and you'll have a mess that no one wants to touch.

          "Who can see who" refers to the Law of Demeter. It seriously negates any befenits to OO if every object in a system is intimate with every other one.

          It makes me sick to be associated with a language where I have to defend such simple things... just as sick as it might make you to try to explain to a Java zealot how hashes are really useful and when they're built in to the language, you wind up using them all the time for all kinds of stuff.

          -scott

          • You can hardly invoke the “stay out of my livingroom not because I have a shotgun” argument to justify writing a God Object.

            But you don’t need mandatory controls if you’re writing a God object either. You won’t understand the need for them until you try to do good OO design, just like a ten-liner can be written without strictures too. Access controls are just another aspect of the sort of design you are talking about.

            It makes me sick to be associated with a language where


            • Quick recap.

              1. I argued that Perl programmers could benefit from some time spent on OO design, and give thought to things like interfaces and which objects can see which other objects.

              2. You object on the grounds that Perl doesn't need forced encapsulation.

              3. I clarify that at no point in that point did I argue for forced encapsulation (though I did at another point, but at that point, I was talking about something else). I restate that, ignoring enforced encapsulation, Perl programmers don't do nearly as

              • Every now and then, I post a disclaimer on my blog, saying that I will be extremely mean to anyone who doesn't follow the house rules. I know I can't impose them, but I can be quite mean. So, please don't do certain things on my blog. But first I ask people to go away. Aristotle [sic] made it to this point and continued on, all the while acting oblivious.

                This isn't a discussion of whether Perl programmers could benefit from learning more about OO design as it was traditionally taught in the late 80's an

              • What? Where have I been saying that Perl does not need forced encapsulation? First I agreed with you, then I argued twice that Perl does need mandatory controls, and now you tell me I said the opposite. Did you even read what I was saying? Or did you immediately go crosseyed and started looking for a misinterpretation of what you said so you had some grounds to get pissed off again?

                I agree that we have a case of someone being a twit here, but it ain’t me.


                • Crossed eyes? Perhaps. Let me re-read, in that case.

                  "Access controls are just another aspect of the sort of design you are talking about."

                  Okay, they're another aspect of it -- does this mean that good design is pointless because access controls are pointless (which is how I took it) or does it mean that, being a seperate aspect, they're simply related in some ways but not others, and if that's the case, what did I fail to read between the lines?

                  "I’m equally sick of the “no infatuation with enf

          • Since you often complain about people failing to address the actual argument, I opted to moved all the incidental but off-topic quibbles to a second reply so they don’t get in the way of my real response.

            Anyway, I wanted to nitpick the following statements:

            Interfaces are a way of keeping straight

            I don’t like interfaces in particular. As seen in Java, they fall out of a confusion and conflation of language design goals. Traits/roles are a much superior concept.

            But even as far as interfac


            • Alright, that was slightly better than I had hoped for but I'm unswayed with regards to whether I want to talk to you.

              My comment was that Perl programmers should spend more time worrying about interfaces and the structure of the code; your retort was that interfaces are poorly implemented and Perl 6's traits and roles are better. That's great... but it's also completely off topic. The point wasn't "Java is better than Perl". That wasn't even the title of the essay. It seems to be a conclusion you slippe

              • My comment was that Perl programmers should spend more time worrying about interfaces and the structure of the code

                Which I agreed with. And in the same breath I pointed to one of my posts in another place where I say that Perl programmers chanting “we prefer politeness not shotguns” is misguided, which I think of as being a sign of the same immaturity.

                That’s great… but it’s also completely off topic.

                Wow, you found the start of my post (where I said all therein was just

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