Tiger

[HS Thomas]

A Poem on Java 1.5 - Tiger
by Joshua Bloch
Joshua Bloch recited the following poem, which he also wrote, at the conclusion of the "TS-3072: Forthcoming Java Programming Language Features" 2003 JavaOne converence session. (Included here with permission.)
Tiger, Tiger Burning Bright
Like a geek who works all night
What new-fangled bit or byte
Could ease the hacker's weary plight?
To the most despised cast
We'll bid a fond farewell at last
With generics' burning spear
The need for cast will disappear
While Iterators have their uses
They sometimes strangle us like nooses
With enhanced-for's deadly ray
Iterator's kept at bay
When from collections ints are drawn
Wrapper classes make us mourn
When Tiger comes, we'll shed no tears
We'll autobox them in the ears
The int-enum will soon be gone
like a foe we've known too long
With typesafe-enum's mighty power
Our foe will bother us no more
And from the constant interface
we shall inherit no disgrace
With static import at our side,
our joy will be unqualified
And as for noble metadata
I'll have to sing its praises later
Its uses are so numerous
To give their due, I'd miss the bus
Tiger, Tiger Burning Bright
Like a geek who works all night
What new-fangled bit or byte
Could ease the hacker's weary plight?
(With apologies to William Blake)

When is Tiger due to be finalised ?
[ July 09, 2003: Message edited by: HS Thomas ]

[HS Thomas]

The language talks at JavaOne had a good attendance. At first you may feel "geez, how about getting real security in EJBs ... that is more important than a damn for shortcut". But these things do matter.
I have been involved in many communities, and maybe none like the Perl community. Since they are lead by a linguist (Larry Wall), the language is very different. You may say that it is too complicated, too easy to make it look like line-noise, etc.... but has two characteristics:
Fun: You can do things how you want, and have fun trying to do weird things [yes, this may not lead to the best code . ]
Restricted: You do not feel at all restricted with this language. You can do things however YOU want [again, maybe not the best idea for the masses
For me, items like a simple foreach construct help a lot. Now code like Cedric's and Cameron's go from:
public boolean containsAll(Collection c) {
for(Iterator iter = c.iterator(); iter.hasNext() ; ) {
if (!contains(iter.next()) {
return false;
}
}
return true;
}
to:
public boolean containsAll(Collection c) {
for (Object o : c) {
if (!contains(o)) return false;
}
return true;
}
Not a BIG deal sure, but a bit cleaner none the less. Then you get to nested loops like:
List deck = new ArrayList(52);
for (Suit suit : Suit.VALUES)
for (Rank rank : Rank.VALUES)
deck.add(new Card(suit, rank));
Collections.shuffle(deck);
and you see the beauty come through (and it just works... no chance to screw up a "i.next();".

Amazing !
regards
[ July 09, 2003: Message edited by: HS Thomas ]