Typing system vs. Java

[brueckd at tbye.com]

On 10 Aug 2001, Christopher Barber wrote:

> > That's how C (mostly) killed assembler.  That's how relational
> > databases won.  Java is trying to ride the same trend.
>
> Actually, I don't think that processor speedup made much of a difference in
> the success of any of these technologies.

Hi Christopher, I'll have to respectfully disagree. ;-) Fast CPUs (along
with cheap memory and fixed storage) is what made their widespread
acceptance possible - it had _everything_ to do with their success. I
programmed in assembly because "equivalent" C programs were just too much
for my 640KB, 4.77MHz machine. And if I could have run a Java or Python
program on that machine... <shudder>. As processor speeds increase, the
drawbacks of using higher level languages and features magically
disappear.

-Dave