The power of java is its KISS design. Java source is very self documenting even when some other person has written it and good comments are rare. And that is very important in practice. Don't clutter it with goofy extensions just to emulate some scripting languages, like closures (there are already anonymous classes), properties (a task of the editor!) or the worst of the suggestions the XML build in the language (this is a task of a smart library). It is a common mistake in computer science that features are added to a language or a program to please a few freaks until it gets unusable for the majority ! There is no need to clutter as many features as possible in a single language. This is more the mentality of a little child: This language is better because it has delegates, properties and so on. If some language freaks really miss features it would be much more clean to start out a new language running on the java platform and include their ideas. If it is really a good design it will get adopted widely. Just like for example AspectJ.
You should also keep in mind that there are many, many developers that have no interest in additional language features, for example because they use a computer-language just as a tool to realize a very smart business logic or solve a mathematical or scientific problem. I mean those people that some bigheaded people at Javalobby and elsewhere call "Joe developer". Those "Joes" concentrate on smart ideas what to realize with a computer and have their interest focussed on an algorithm to solve a problem (and know for example much about science than about computer languages). They have no interest in a programming language that can express as much as possible in a single line, but they prefer a language that you can easily read and understand even when you get source from other people or program only from time to time.
The language freaks tend to add features until something like Perl or C++ comes out. Thats OK with me, use those languages and laugh at the "Joes" that do not remember all features of C++, but please don't deform Java. The language is a great tool as it is ! Go on with improving the libraries, the integration in operating systems, web-start and so on. |
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