[TriLUG] Re: Managed languages (was .NET development on Linux)

[Aaron Bockover]

I love my pointers! Memory management is a fun thing for me... I like
working closer to the system, and some things are just better done under
C. Now, I also do like the concept of OO... but I don't like C++,
because it OO just doesn't seem to be implemented properly in the
language, and it's built on C... it's just messy. I can't stand Java,
because it seems slow, it all around feels creepy, and the primary
compiler is not open (I know there is an open Java compiler, but I
really just don't care for the language.) Has anyone read Stallman's
"Free But Unrunnable (The Java Trap)" article? Very interesting quick
read. It was published in the May FSF newsletter. C# ... again, just
feels like a weird language - I don't feel comfortable with its origins.
For anything system or desktop wise, I like my C.

Now, as for OO - I have fallen deeeeeply in love with PHP 5. I've been
using it solid for about a year, since the first beta came out. The
object model is killer. It's a full OO implementation, completely
rewritten since PHP 4 (the Zend Engine has been completely re hauled).
There's a new internal type for classes that makes everything a
reference internally. The horrible thing about OO in PHP 4 was a lack of
common OO features such as inheritance and public/private/protected
members, etc. But the worst was the fact that every time you used an
object, or passed it to a function, a *copy* was passed unless you
specified to pass a reference using the & operator. Anyway, PHP 5 is
just awesome. For writing web-based applications, it's my only choice.
The new DOM XML support (following the W3C DOM standards) is awesome,
MySQLi support is great, and it's fully compatible with older programs.

And as you mentioned, PHP can't be compiled without expensive tools, PHP
5 is much faster than previous versions. Maybe that counts for
something. I also find myself using PHP to do occasional shell
"scripting" -- especially with better CLI support now. I use BASH most
of the time still, but it's nice to have the support.

As for memory management in C/C++... though the best memory handling is
going to come from how well you write your code, memprof does help with
identifying leaks.

-Aaron




On Thu, 2004-06-17 at 09:46, Joseph Tate wrote:
> Aaron Bockover wrote:
> > While I *really* don't care for C# or VB, I certainly respect the work
> > being done in the Mono area for .NET support.
> > 
> > (snip)
> >
> > Happy .NETting? :-/ I'll stick to C :-)
> > 
> 
> Have fun with your pointers!  I'll be shifting any new development work 
> to a language in which I don't have to worry about memory management. 
> C#, though I despised it at first, may fit the bill.  VB .Net doesn't 
> seem like a real language to me.  Java, though I prefer it, is not well 
> supported under Linux (unfortunately, but gjc 3.4 should change that). 
> Perl and PHP are great, but can't be compiled (without expensive third 
> party tools).  Python is collapsing in on itself (according to some whom 
> I respect).  I do know that I'm tired of tracking down memory leaks.
> 
> If there's a language that I should be learning, let me know.  I'm 
> taking a look at XUL right now to see if that is useful.  Am I giving 
> Python an unfair judgement?  Is there a memory management plugin for 
> C/C++ (though that would defeat the purpose)?
> 
> Joseph
> C/C++, Java, Perl, PHP, VB, InstallScript, Bash, Batch, and PL/SQL developer