| > C# 9 has more features in the release (one year after the release of C# 8) than java had in the past five years. Not even close. They're adding small features to the language, while Java adds huge features to the runtime. .NET is 10-15 years behind Java on the runtime. Roughly speaking, Java's philosophy (going back to Gosling) has been to innovate on the runtime and keep the language conservative, while .NET's has been to add a lot of features to the language and keep the runtime relatively crude. There is no indication that changing our strategy would be a wise move. > Some people even think we're moving too fast. Here, we have five features in five years. Not some; most. Most people prefer fewer than five features in five years, even though many prefer more. I really wish we could make both you and the others happy, but I don't see how we can do that other than what we're already doing: have Java be the popular mainstream language, and support other languages on the platform for those who prefer something else. > Some of those features should've been there 20 years ago. Should have been there so that what? Or at the expense of what? Our goal is to build a successful language used by millions, not to push the envelope in programming language design (although we are pushing the envelope in runtime design). We introduce features when we think mainstream programmers could use them in the best way, and we add them slowly enough so that we're not overtaken by fashion and we have room to grow for decades. You may not like it, it's okay, and it's even perfectly reasonable. But this has worked really, really well. > It's a great delusion. Fine. Maybe you have more access to market data than we do. Fact of the matter is, no other language is doing any better, and Java has fewer serious competitors today than it did in the last 15 years. > But when you express concern about this? I am not dismissing your concerns. I am merely explaining that we have about ten million other developers we cater to aside from you, and they don't all share your opinions. Your views are far from unique, and we are well aware that many people want the language to evolve faster -- and that's perfectly legitimate although I personally don't think it's a good idea for such a popular language -- but even more don't. |
Ah yes. Using a single common way to initalize things and unifying arrays and lists (so that you don't need helper modules, and you don't have to rely on the kindness of libs to provide .of methods) is "fashion" (as are many other things).
But "yeah, we will maybe some day 10-20 years from now provide a way to build records, and only records, in a way that doesn't require hundreds of lines of boilerplate", that's long-term strategic planning and evolution.
Well, we're talking past each other. I'm well aware that any change in a language the scale of Java is a daunting task. But the condescending tone that dismisses something as "features for the quick-feature-mided fashion crowd" clearly shows that it's not these concerns that drive these decisions, but purely subjective outlook on things.