Tuesday, August 24, 2004
 
The Chosen Language

Slashdot links to this piece: Top Reasons Why People Think Java Un-Cool - Debunked.

Oddly enough, those ten reasons tend to include things like "Java is so easy to use" and "Java is mainstream" and "Java's not geeky enough." Mmm-hmmm.

Funny how the reasons that Java has been considered uncool are also its marketing strengths. Speaking as a QA person and a developer who's worked in several Java shops, I'd posit its uncoolness on its non-robust interface APIs which lead to clunky, good-for-1984 user interfaces which, oddly enough, did not play nicely with the dominant operating system. If you're a Java geek, working from a Linux command line, any window (or frame or panel) looks usable, but a functionary sitting at a desktop trying to do his or her job as easily and as quickly as possible, without handy stack traces, would probably disagree.

What's my point? Java's okay for middleware, but its interfaces have not been cool and as far as I have seen haven't yet gotten cool.


 
To say Noggle, one first must be able to say the "Nah."