Has Java become too complicated?

[Mike Schilling]

Mike Schilling wrote On 02/26/07 11:10,:

"Inherited from C?"

C++, that is.

 

[Oliver Wong]

The JLS is a complicated document, which has been carefully written, and
re-written, by some very precise and intelligent people. As such it is
like a
large computer program -- it contains bugs. One of the perennial topics
here
on C.L.J.P is discussion of whether some passage should be taken exactly
as
written, needs to be "interpreted" a little, or is just plain wrong.

The JLS is an authority, true. It is /the/ authority. But, like
anything of
human creation, it is not perfect.

Most typically, if the compiler seems to be doing something daft, it
will turn
out that it is just following the rules laid down in the JLS, and that
those
rules make perfect sense (even if they give rise to counter-intuitive
consequences sometime). Rather rarely (at least until recently) it will
turn
out that the compiler is /not/ following the rules of the JLS, and is
therefore
buggy. But there is an unknown, and unknowable, number of cases where
the
compiler is getting it right, but if anyone traced the details down then
they'd
find that JLS required different behaviour -- i.e. that the JLS was
buggy.

Put your faith in it by all means, but keep your wits about you when you
do.

Ironic that this is brought up in a (trolling?) thread titled "Has
Java become too complicated?".

- Oliver