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From: Eric Sosman <esosman@comcast-dot-net.invalid>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.java.programmer
Subject: Re: [OT] Re: missing import java.lang.Comparable
Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2016 08:25:25 -0400
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On 7/8/2016 4:01 AM, Andreas Leitgeb wrote:
> Eric Sosman <esosman@comcast-dot-net.invalid> wrote:
>> On 7/7/2016 2:29 PM, Andreas Leitgeb wrote:
>>> Eric Sosman <esosman@comcast-dot-net.invalid> wrote:
>>>> [...]
>>>> (which always seems to be the most irritating situation), I go ahead and
>>>> write it out.  And gnash my teeth, and tilt at other windmills instead.
>>> Its not like we had much of a choice besides "write it out & gnash teeth"...
>>> "other windmills" ... also Java-related?
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilting_at_windmills
>
> Looked at it, just to find the obvious meaning (as a reference to Don Quixote)
> confirmed.
>
> I was asking, if those other windmills were also related to features perceived
> as lacking in Java, or some entirely other domain?

     Sorry; I thought perhaps I had erred by confronting an Austrian
with an English idiom.  This sense of the verb "tilt" is almost never
used nowadays except in reference to Quixote's windmill adventure, and
I feared I might have misled you.  Glad I didn't.

     (Sometimes the literal translation of an idiom is of no help at all,
and one must simply learn the meaning by rote.  That's why "Take him
for a ride" means "Nimm ihn um die Ecke," or so I'm told, even though
neither translates to the other.)

     Anyhow: Java presents lots of annoyances, some petty and some more
troublesome, but those aren't the windmills I tilt at.  I'd like it if
Java had unsigned arithmetic and if signed integer overflow threw an
exception instead of wrapping around silently and sneakily -- but that's
not going to happen.  I'd like it if primitive types were more like
objects, so I could have things like a `List<float>'.  I'd like to add
and multiply BigIntegers with `+' and `*'.  Occasionally I'd like to use
something like a `typedef' to address some of the issues covered in this
thread.  But I have a more realistic estimate of my powers than did the
Don, so I leave those windmills to other giant-slayers.

     Instead, alas, I struggle against the problems I myself put in my
own path.  Most of my troubles are self-inflicted, most of my windmills
are self-erected, and I tilt at them endlessly, or so it seems.  My own
faults are more troublesome than Java's ...

-- 
esosman@comcast-dot-net.invalid
"Don't be afraid of work. Make work afraid of you." -- TLM