NYCPHP Meetup

[Leila Lappin]

Java is not an easy language to work with.  If anyone
has the time and the interest you can validate this
for yourself.  Java has a lot of features that can
bring a shop to a halt. For example garbage collection
is supposed to be one of those magical features of
Java, except there is caveat.  The garbage collection
system reclaims a memory if and when the memory is
released.  When is the memory released?  That’s where
you have to watch out for traps and pitfalls,  just
because you’re done with an object and it’s apparently
out of scope does not mean that it’s released.  I saw
this happen at a Java shop I used work at, every day
at 12 noon the server went down!   It took a few days
of intense debugging by the most senior level
developer to figure out the problem.

Just take a quick look at this one post from a popular
Java forum,
http://saloon.javaranch.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=24&t=027721
.  There seems to be confusion over whether Java
passes by value or reference, and that is supposed to
be one of the most basic and fundamental rules of the
language, one of the features that made Java oh soo
soo.. much better than C++.   Except it seems with all
the exceptions nobody is really sure when the rule
applies and when it doesn’t.  

But Java was developed by Sun Corporation, so it has
the seal of approval of the big corporation bosses. 
It didn’t hurt that Sun was in the news for years over
fighting with the big bad Microsoft to keep Java pure
and open (yawn).  Plus, the CEOs and CTOs of
corporations that choose Java don’t have to worry
about the cost and time of development they already
solved that problem.



		
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