[OT] Java generics (was: Guido sees the light: PEP 8 updated)

[Chris Angelico]

On Mon, Apr 18, 2016 at 8:02 AM, Tim Delaney
<timothy.c.delaney at gmail.com> wrote:
> I also wouldn't describe Java as a
> "perfectly good language" - it is at best a compromise language that just
> happened to be heavily promoted and accepted at the right time.
>
> Python is *much* closer to my idea of a perfectly good language.

"Java" was originally four related, but separate, concepts: a source
language, a bytecode, a sandboxing system, and one other that I can't
now remember. The published bytecode was way ahead of its day, and
coupled with the sandbox, it made Java into the one obvious language
for web browser applets (until the rise of Flash, and then the
increase in power of JavaScript etc).

If the source language and bytecode+sandbox had been more
disconnected, and the latter more standardized, Java might have been a
hugely popular language because of one important role (web browser
applets) that can also be used elsewhere. Instead, it made a promise
of "write once, run everywhere" that didn't really hold up (the
Australian Taxation Office let you file corporate taxes either on
paper or using their Java application - and it didn't run on OS/2
Java) and lost a ton of potential marketshare. Imagine how the world
would be today, if languages like NetRexx had had a chance to shine -
completely different source code language, compiling to the same Java
bytecode.

Jython might have been the one most popular language for applet development...

ChrisA