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Revenge of the Nerds

In the software business there is an ongoing struggle between the pointy-headed academics, and another equally formidable force, the pointy-haired bosses. Everyone knows who the pointy-haired boss is, right? I think most people in the technology world not only recognize this cartoon character, but know the actual person in their company that he is modelled upon.

The pointy-haired boss miraculously combines two qualities that are common by themselves, but rarely seen together: (a) he knows nothing whatsoever about technology, and (b) he has very strong opinions about it.

Suppose, for example, you need to write a piece of software. The pointy-haired boss has no idea how this software has to work, and can't tell one programming language from another, and yet he knows what language you should write it in. Exactly. He thinks you should write it in Java.

Why does he think this? Let's take a look inside the brain of the pointy-haired boss. What he's thinking is something like this. Java is a standard. I know it must be, because I read about it in the press all the time. Since it is a standard, I won't get in trouble for using it. And that also means there will always be lots of Java programmers, so if the programmers working for me now quit, as programmers working for me mysteriously always do, I can easily replace them.

Well, this doesn't sound that unreasonable. But it's all based on one unspoken assumption, and that assumption turns out to be false. The pointy-haired boss believes that all programming languages are pretty much equivalent. If that were true, he would be right on target. If languages are all equivalent, sure, use whatever language everyone else is using.

But all languages are not equivalent, and I think I can prove this to you without even getting into the differences between them. If you asked the pointy-haired boss in 1992 what language software should be written in, he would have answered with as little hesitation as he does today. Software should be written in C++. But if languages are all equivalent, why should the pointy-haired boss's opinion ever change? In fact, why should the developers of Java have even bothered to create a new language?

Presumably, if you create a new language, it's because you think it's better in some way than what people already had. And in fact, Gosling makes it clear in the first Java white paper that Java was designed to fix some problems with C++. So there you have it: languages are not all equivalent. If you follow the trail through the pointy-haired boss's brain to Java and then back through Java's history to its origins, you end up holding an idea that contradicts the assumption you started with.

So, who's right? James Gosling, or the pointy-haired boss? Not surprisingly, Gosling is right. Some languages are better, for certain problems, than others. And you know, that raises some interesting questions. Java was designed to be better, for certain problems, than C++. What problems? When is Java better and when is C++? Are there situations where other languages are better than either of them?

Once you start considering this question, you have opened a real can of worms. If the pointy-haired boss had to think about the problem in its full complexity, it would make his brain explode. As long as he considers all languages equivalent, all he has to do is choose the one that seems to have the most momentum, and since that is more a question of fashion than technology, even he can probably get the right answer. But if languages vary, he suddenly has to solve two simultaneous equations, trying to find an optimal balance between two things he knows nothing about: the relative suitability of the twenty or so leading languages for the problem he needs to solve, and the odds of finding programmers, libraries, etc. for each. If that's what's on the other side of the door, it is no surprise that the pointy-haired boss doesn't want to open it.

The disadvantage of believing that all programming languages are equivalent is that it's not true. But the advantage is that it makes your life a lot simpler. And I think that's the main reason the idea is so widespread. It is a comfortable idea.

We know that Java must be pretty good, because it is the cool, new programming language. Or is it? If you look at the world of programming languages from a distance, it looks like Java is the latest thing. (From far enough away, all you can see is the large, flashing billboard paid for by Sun.) But if you look at this world up close, you find that there are degrees of coolness. Within the hacker subculture, there is another language called Perl that is considered a lot cooler than Java. Slashdot, for example, is generated by Perl. I don't think you would find those guys using Java Server Pages. But there is another, newer language, called Python, whose users tend to look down on Perl, and more waiting in the wings.


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