Jason Blinn

AI, translate OFFENSIVE WORD  into TARGET LANGUAGE.

AI, give me a list of words I should never use in LANGUAGE  and their translations.

See if AI will do it.

Totally agree. Not against change but there's a certain kind o f change I never like - information hiding change.

This is happening not only in the language but in the IDEs as well. There's a certain mindset or personality or aesthetic (or something)  that appears to experience the presentation of "too much" information as noise.  For me personally, I want the information turned up to 11. It doesn't  confuse me or bother me and I make ready use of it constantly.  

I really think this is down to personal preference and the diversity with which people experience the world at some basic level.

It drives me crazy to see my IDE disappearing all the buttons and widgets and panels which I use. They're going for a "clean" or "beautiful"  look to their IDE but as I complained to them, it should be that form follows function. People think something is beautiful just because it's useful. The learned eye perceives a kind of  beauty in it because that worker understands how  the tool provides utility and saves effort. Its utility isn't improved just because it's made to look  "beautiful" or "simpler" or "cleaner" or "less cluttered" to just the eye.  That's driving everything the wrong way. Who cares how people who do not understand the tool or the job to be done experience the tool?  

var is like that. Somehow, I am supposed to appreciate the fact I don't  have to go to the trouble of specifying the type and the line of code is free of that  "clutter".  I do not experience it like  that.  I experience pretty much what you described.

But the fact is, not everyone is me. It's interesting to reflect that programmers as a class of people tend to be higher on the spectrum than most people and people on the spectrum are distinguished by having a low tolerance for "noise" or "clutter". I think this is at least part of the drive with languages like Kotlin which go out of their way to hide "unnecessary" information as much as possible. Nothing against these people and how they want things to be, I am just not one of them.      

Same thing at work with inner classes. People complained about the "ceremony' and "noise" of inner classes and this was one of the supposed features of lambdas (there are other points to lambdas and I use and like lambdas). I always felt the opposite way about inner classes. They clarified things to me by making them totally explicit. If you don't  know what class a  lambda is hiding  then you're losing out on an "en passant"   opportunity to learn something  about that class, like, at least, it exists, right?

Maybe information hiding is great if you know what information is being hidden (and never forget), but what if it's not your code? Then you have to take extra measures  if you want to understand the types involved. Sure everything like that is recoverable in the IDE but previously,  it was right there. That was better.

I always turn off every "information hiding" feature in the IDE I can find.  

     

I think Oracle has a page on each Java release where they go over 'what's new". At least, they used to. I always found that helpful to understand what had changed between each version. If you're on 6, then look for the release notes for 7 (I think it was still Sun back then but they may still have those on Oracle's site.)

IIRC Java 8 may represent a big jump for you. You could also get an O'Reilly subscription and look for a book dedicated to Java 7 then Java 8 etc etc... I seem to recall these types of books appearing  for each version from various authors at the time.    

HTH

Preethi Vallam wrote:Hi,

I had last used Java 6 extensively in my projects after completing SCJP6 and, though I have heard of the features after that, I haven't been able to get a certification on Java versions after that. Would you please suggest some way to get a refresher till latest Java21 features? How do I approach it and how much time would I need to update myself? Can you suggest some quick techniques?

Thanks
Preethi

Claude Moore wrote:Hi to all,

if you would bet on an emerging technology / programming language, which would be your choice ?

Java.  Especially for AI. Even though Python is ahead right now I don't think it's due to anything other than Google very heavily pushing it when they were in court against Oracle and the fact that most AI researchers aren't programmers per. se. and found the ceremony around Java  a cumbersome hurtle.

In the end, especially with Oracle behind it, I think the real strengths of Java plus Oracle's willingness and ability to adapt the language to  meet the desires and needs of AI researchers  will carry the day.

Java is just the better language from every vantage point except barrier to entry which was, I guess, what AI researchers valued and consequently the way AI research did happen to unfold.

Not flaming Python or Python mavens. Just my 2 cents in answer to this question.