Beyond Java - Review by Joel Spolsky

There is a review by Joel Spolsky about the book Beyond Java by Bruce Tate.

Here is what I feel about all the hoopla about Java. Java is an exceptionallly designed language. While designing Java, the crew has taken the lessons-learnt from earlier languages into consideration and made sure that the traps and pit-falls have been addressed, if not all at least the most significant ones.

But ...

It doesn't matter how powerful the tool is. A person can still make least use of it. And much worse he can abuse it! Thats one of the things happening in Java community.

Class bloat - the scariest things that I can ever think of. I am sure there is so much of code that is redundent and repeated. For solving simple problems people write class after class.
Don't care attitude about objects - most of the people are least bothered about the number of objects created in heap, since the onus is not in their part but the GC's part to recollect unused memory.

Most of the Java programming community that I find around me lack insight (no offense intended!). Especially the ones who didn't like C/C++ and ran away, and the ones who never had a prior programming experience at the system level in Unix/Windows. They find it extremely difficult to visualize what happens when one million objects are created in heap and never used. Or the threading model of the underlying operating system. Or what is exactly meant by a resource handle (file descriptor, or socket id, etc.)

And most important thing that I find amongst the growing programming community (not just Java community) today is lack of theoretical knowledge. For e.g. in India, the number of programmers coming from non-computer science background is on the increase. But how many of them show interest and take time to read a fundamental computer science book on Algorithms?

I believe it will be a good thing if Design and Analysis of Algorithms is made as a mandatory course for all the Engineering and Science students.