public static void main(String[] a) { System.out.println("Hello world");}
I had to muster up all of my patience just to type all that code out. You're right! Java is so verbose!
Your "argument" if you can call it that, is like people saying lisp is crap because it uses too many brackets.
I was 10 when I learned Java, and it always threw me off having to copy those first two magic lines which I never understood. What is 'public class'? Why 'static'? What even does the word 'void' mean? 'String[]'?!
Sure, after a few months I figured out the meaning of all of those words -- but it wasn't nice having to do that "open up last file I wrote / copy magic header to new file".
I don't think it's wrong to teach Java as a first language, but I think that there are better first languages which show what real computer science is faster than Java does. Less coercion of a language to do what you want and more free-flowing ideas.
Far more important though is how much stuff is in that one line of code that needs to be understood in order for what you are typing to be more than just arcane magic words. Pedagogically speaking that is an awful way to get started, so I think the claim that that is not a great way to teach kids is pretty valid.
To be fair I fully agree that 'Hello world' is not a good way to assess the worth of a language in general, but the ease of getting started is a valid concern when using a language to introduce programming
class M { public static void main(String[] a) { System.out.println("Hello World"); } }
In many other languages, there's much less boilerplate to handwave away:
print("Hello World")
puts "Hello World"
(println "Hello World")class a{static{System.out.println("Hello world");System.exit(0);}}
It also doesn't cut down much on the amount of boilerplate you need.
> Your "argument" if you can call it that
From Hacker News guidelines ( http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html):
"Be civil. Don't say things you wouldn't say in a face to face conversation. When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names."
class foo { ... }
java foo
./foo
Sure, let's throw out of the window all the optimizations the VM can do at runtime because it takes a whole second to start the VM.
And you need to actually compile the source file before executing it!
Those server applications should all be written in bash because it's instantaneous!
Kidding aside, one prof at my university once told me that she wished students should still have to compile and wait for a program to start. When there is such a delay, it pays to read your code and try to understand it before running it (as opposed to run-and-see-what-happens).
This one never ceases to annoy me.
The JVM is optimized for LONG RUNNING PROCESSES. It's targeted specifically toward running on servers, because that's the default use case. There's about a million options switches, gc controls, etc if you want to run it in another way.
If you want fast startup time, try compiling with gcj or something.
In any event, I run a javac->java loop many times an hour when developing, and the startup time is un-noticable.