Java was such a fractal of stupid design choices in its early years, and a lot of it is still there. OOP except when it’s not (int vs Integer, [] arrays but also List et al), no unsigned number types, initially no way to do closures or pass methods around so everything had to be wrapped in super verbose bullshit, initially absolutely dogshit multiparadigm support and very noun-oriented, initally no generics either meaning everything’s an Object, when it did get generics they had to do type erasure for backwards compatibility, etc etc etc
I think having null is great in some cases where you need to represent missing value. It’s just that there’s no good way to know for sure if you need to do null checks or not. The only way around it is to do null checks everywhere, which no one wants to do because fuck that. Nowadays there’s Optional which solves some of this, but it was introduced way too late.
If I were to redesign Java the first thing I would do is to add a nullable keyword or something.
Great article, thanks for the link! It makes good points that I hadn’t really considered; I’ve probably just been cranky about it because I’ve preferred heterogenous translations
Java was such a fractal of stupid design choices in its early years, and a lot of it is still there. OOP except when it’s not (
intvsInteger,[]arrays but alsoListet al), no unsigned number types, initially no way to do closures or pass methods around so everything had to be wrapped in super verbose bullshit, initially absolutely dogshit multiparadigm support and very noun-oriented, initally no generics either meaning everything’s anObject, when it did get generics they had to do type erasure for backwards compatibility, etc etc etcAlso: everything is nullable. There are no safety guarantees to ensure you’ve done the necessary null checks. And if you miss your program will crash.
Oh yeah how did I forget the billion dollar mistake, definitely one of the worst misfeatures of Java
I think having null is great in some cases where you need to represent missing value. It’s just that there’s no good way to know for sure if you need to do null checks or not. The only way around it is to do null checks everywhere, which no one wants to do because fuck that. Nowadays there’s Optional which solves some of this, but it was introduced way too late.
If I were to redesign Java the first thing I would do is to add a nullable keyword or something.
Option types or sum types would probably be a much less terrible choice for this, although I guess some sort of nullable keyword counts as a sum type
Well, anything that can be captured at compile time or by the IDE is infinitely better than the situation we have today.
Ha yeah, just about anything is better than the current status quo
Regarding erasure, this is a good read. https://cr.openjdk.org/~briangoetz/valhalla/erasure.html
Great article, thanks for the link! It makes good points that I hadn’t really considered; I’ve probably just been cranky about it because I’ve preferred heterogenous translations
Glad you liked it!