Talk:Java (programming language)

Merge Criticism of Java

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Articles were not merged per consensus below. Guoguo12--Talk--  19:41, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

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Back in April, the article Criticism of Java was proposed for merger into this article. However proper protocol wasn't used and no actual real discussion took place that I can find. The merger was then performed, however most of the content was not salvaged in the process (effectively deleted without AfD proposal). For now, I have reverted the redirect on the page to re-propose this merge again. Criticism pages are always difficult monsters on Wikipedia because they attract a lot of bad apples. If it's decided that the content is verifiable and neutral then the page's contents should remain intact, either in its own article or merged into this one. --ZacBowling ^(user|talk) 16:32, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

I think that merging it with this article is a good idea. Sae1962 (talk) 09:49, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

I dont see a criticism section in Ruby or Visual Basic. I think most good software engineers would see Java lightyears ahead of Visual Basic. Anyway the main criticisms of Java are kind of moot anyway, particularly performance : it lists a big Performance heading, and then the first thing it says is that it really isn't an issue anymore. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.61.74.55 (talk) 12:30, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

There is plenty of criticism of other programming languages. For example, C++#Criticism and .NET Framework#Criticism have dedicated criticism sections. Ruby (programming language)#Deviations_from_behavior_elsewhere and Perl has had their criticism integrated into their articles. --ZacBowling ^(user|talk) 21:07, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

I think merging the criticism with the article was a very bad idea, as the criticism itself seemed to be hidden away, which is a subtle editorializing in and of itself. To me it gave the impression that Java was above criticism, which, again to me, it certainly is not. This was it remains out in the open. Light years ahead of anything? 46.126.154.27 (talk) 09:50, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_(programming_language) should be able Java itself. Not the criticism of it, nor lawsuits, etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.4.137.32 (talk) 16:00, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

This article is already at the size limit thus merging is certainly a bad idea.1exec1 (talk) 20:20, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

I was just going to say, that for size reasons, it is better if the Criticism article is kept separate, but linked up here and there so that a critical eye might "get its pleasures". About 213.61.74.55's comment: every proficient programmer knows that every programming language is inferior to every other, making all programming languages an equivalence set of general deteriority, and the pain of the programmer. Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 12:18, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Against merging. in the main Java article, valid criticism points will get easier "lost" like in former merges Shaddim (talk) 11:29, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

• Do not merge; given the size, the resulting article would immediately be an excellent candidate for WP:SPLITTING: "If ... a section of an article has a length that is out of proportion to the rest of the article it is recommended that a split be carried out." TJRC (talk) 01:06, 22 January 2011 (UTC)
• Don't Merge; I agree with TJRC. The "it attracts bad apples" or "its hidden" are strange arguments to merge an article. IHMO, only a valid reason is the size of the article. --MarsRover (talk) 18:50, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

I think that is 2 for vs. 8 against. Close case and remove templates? Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 15:59, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

External links

I think this link is too specific: "How Java's Floating-Point Hurts Everyone Everywhere, by W. Kahan and Joseph D. Darcy, University of California, Berkeley" and there at least 4 link to oracle's sites (java and sun are oracle sites) I think we can leave only one know that sun is an oracle company — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aludstartups (talk • contribs) 16:41, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Numbering

Can there be a numbering section to explain the different versions? (Or the articles themselves clarify which version they are talking about).

The Java syntax page talks about Java 7, but I have no idea what that means. Given the Java 1.6 was launched 40 days ago, it's difficult to understand what Java 7 might be referring to. 202.122.63.112 (talk) 05:02, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

There is an entire article about Java version history: Java version history Is this what you are asking for? It is in the "See Also" section, do you have any ideas on how to make this clearer? Sabbott1877 (talk) 22:50, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Launching a Java Program

A new section explaining how to "launch" a Java program would be of benefit, with examples across the spectrum from the simple "Hello, world" example, to more complex, "real-world" examples (e.g, use as an example a popular Open Source program). I request this for "launching" a program is mentioned in the article, but no specifics are provided. At a minimum, I would hope for an example "launch" for each code piece that appears in the article. Dan Aquinas (talk) 19:32, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

RfC Doubt about Java name

About a week ago I corrected the origin of the Java name. It was said that it was from a list of random words, while the true origin is from the brand of coffee called Java. The former reference was pointing to a suspicious website, that apparently had a copy of an article extracted from a Sun employee's blog, called Jonathan.

I've got a couple of probable hypothesis:

• the creators of the previous website copied Jonathan's post, published on their site and linked wikipedia in order to increase their pagerank
• Sun's employee, Jonathan, was said to spread this false history to "change the past" and avoid legal problems with Java coffee brand
• me and several hundred websites including thefreedictionary.com are wrong about Java deriving its name from coffee's one

In cases like this, how can we find the truth? if all means go through the web, a few linked websites and a good SEO do the job in creating a new truth, because all investigation goes through first results of a google search.. what do you think about this? Atti (talk) 19:28, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

• What are the sources? - Atti: can you give some sources for the origin of the name (copied from the word for coffee?). I see the article has one source already, but that is just an online dictionary, which is not the best source. Is there some Java textbook? Or a history of Sun corp? Don't worry about "truth" ... see WP:Truth: the key thing is to find reliable sources (WP:RS) that talk about the origin of the word, and incorporate those, even if they indicate multiple origins. After you find some sources, it will be easy to fix the text in this article to reflect the sources. --Noleander (talk) 21:07, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Here is one source: Machine vision algorithms in Java: techniques and implementation, by Paul F. Whelan, Derek Molloy, p 21. But it just repeats the coffee story and does not give details from an actual person that was there. It should be adequate, but it would be better to find a book that actually quotes one of the Java creators. --Noleander (talk) 21:12, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

• Here is another one - Walter J. Savitch, Java: an introduction to problem solving & programming, Pearson Prentice Hall, 2005, p. 22: "The question of how Java got its name does not have a very interesting answer. The current custom is to name programming languages in pretty much the same way that parents name their children. The creator of the programming language simply chooses any name that sounds good to her or him. The original name of the language was "Oak." Later the creators realized that there already was a computer language named Oak, so they needed another name, and "Java" was chosen. One hears conflicting explanations of the origin of the name "Java." One traditional, perhaps believable, story is that the name was thought of when, after a fruitless meeting in which they tried to come up with a new name, the development team went out for coffee, and the rest is, as they say, history." Alex Harvey (talk) 07:43, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
• Proposed text The origins of the name Java are unknown, but one theory is that it's named after the slang term for coffee. D O N D E groovily Talk to me 23:36, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Is Java a slang term for cofee? And more importantly does the sources state that it is named after the slang term, rather than the brand name? 89.9.62.42 (talk) 04:45, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Java coffee Xcrivener (talk) 10:13, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Version number

here: Java Standard Edition 7 Update 1(1.7.1)

german wiki: 7.0.1

what is right??? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.232.55.153 (talk) 13:01, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Too many examples

I think the article has too many examples and feels to much as a programming textbook. I don't see why there needs to be example code for Applets, Swing GUIs, Servlets with detailed explanations. If you compare it to the C++ or C articles it becomes apparent that the amount of code in the article has to be reduces for readability. What are your opinions on this? --217.209.140.211 (talk) 10:25, 15 January 2012 (UTC)