Darrell Norton's Blog [MVP]

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Java not suitable for object-oriented frameworks?

Interesting article on why Java is not suitable for object-oriented frameworks [via Jeff Sutherland]. From the abstract:

Many business applications involve Java and object-oriented frameworks. Several characteristics of Java conflict with some key features of frameworks. These conflicts force the creation of “work-arounds” by developers. We show several examples that illustrate the tensions that exist between Java and object-oriented frameworks, and discuss how we solved them.

Most of this obviously applies to .NET, except for section 4.2. The .NET-equivalent to the Java “Deprecated” comment is the “Obsolete” attribute, which is not buried in the comments. Not too sure on the remote exceptions section. Any takers care to bring us up to speed?

Published Dec 23 2003, 03:26 PM by darrell

Comments

Brendan Tompkins said:

Talk about throwing out the baby with the bath water.

Not sure I understand or agree with their argument about Covariant return types being needed. I can think of other things, like multiple inheritance that I'd rather have. I guess a purist would say that if you need MI, you have a poor model.

Static Type Checking is bad? Um.. Well, they could try to convice the compiler makers to take it out. We could try to get auto makers to remove airbags too, because they lead to relaxed driving.

I'm not an expert on OO, by any means, but I think if you're saying that Java is "Not Suitable" for OO frameworks, you'd better have more to evidence back you up...

# December 29, 2003 5:47 AM

Patrick Logan said:

I exchanged some email with Dragos before this was presented at OOPSLA last year. The "not suited" aspect was intended to draw attention to the poster, as opposed to being their definitive conclusion.

# December 29, 2003 5:50 AM

Darrell said:

First off, not saying I agree, as I drew similar parallels to .NET (my favorite).

Second, it was written by Smalltalkers, who like to do pretty much everything at run-time. If you're used to that level of power and flexibility (and responsibility), yeah, Java or .NET will seem like a step back because it actually enforces *some* rules.

Finally, like Patrick says, I don't think that was their main conclusion. The article was mostly about beating Java into doing what Smalltalk does. I don't understand why you would do that, other than some businessperson mandated Java when Smalltalk would have been better.

# December 29, 2003 5:58 AM

Brendan Tompkins said:

Patrick.. Funny you said that they were trying to draw attention by the title, because I was going to suggest that they picked that title for that very reason. Publish or perish, I guess. If you don't have much to say, at least say it loud and stomp your foot while you're at it. ;)

# December 29, 2003 8:54 AM