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From: rugger@iglou.com (Marcus Rugger)
Subject: Re: Java vs. Smalltalk vs. C++ vs. OO COBOL
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Date: Fri, 28 Jun 1996 20:02:40 GMT
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In article <4quhuc$2qt2@news-s01.ny.us.ibm.net>, dave000@ibm.net wrote:
>
>>Quite honestly I think youre nuts :)  Smalltalk is a far superior
>>language to Java.  Unfortunately the only problem is the
>>platform-dependence.  If it were "platform-independent" like Java it
>>would blow java out of the water.
>>
>>Jason
>>
>
>"Superior" is an opinion and "if" is a big chasm to cross. Java is immature,
> but
>immature or not, it is being embraced by too wide a spectrum of software users
>and creators to ignore. Look how popular that DOS/Windows piece of crap is
>compared to the other functional and dependable OSs that are out there. The
>majority spending the money is what is important, not technical prowess. That's
>why Java will steamroller C++ and Smalltalk.
>

Java isn't going to steamroll over any language.  And no languages are going 
to steamroll over Java.  As I said in an earlier post, a particular 
programming language is going to be used for as long as it's useful.

C/C++ is useful today and will be for the forseeable future.  On any platform, 
I don't care what it is or what the OS is, there has to be code that actually 
manipulates hardware.  That code is either written in C or assembly language 
or both.  For example, Java makes it extremely simple to write to system out 
(System.out.println("Hello World.");).  But it's taking advantage of a system 
service that's probably written in C.

Somebody else noted that database management isn't spec'ed into the C/C++ 
language.  Ok, true.  But in the languages in which it is, those specific 
methods/functions are probably making calls to routines that are written in 
C/C++.

I'm not belittling any language here, nor am I trying to place C/C++ on an 
alter.  I'm just saying that languages are tools and you choose the right one 
for the job.  Java can't and won't replace C/C++, even if java fullfills it's 
every dream.

Marcus
