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Re: What’s Your Least Favourite Programming Language?

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On Thu, 27 Aug 2026 21:11:55 -0300
Kragen Javier Sitaker <kragen@canonical.org> wrote:

> > Another language that feels needlessly gross and tedious is Java -
> > (...) but then it's somehow still the best solution we've got for
> > write-once-run-anywhere development, which is maddening :/  
> 
> I think that may have been true around 02001, when J2ME could run more
> or less normal Java code on *all kinds* of fairly small feature
> phones. But it never made the leap to smaller microcontrollers like
> the AVR, feature phones evaporated, feature-phone-sized micro-
> controllers never acquired J2ME support, and now in 02026 we have a
> number of better solutions: C under Unix, portable C, Rust, Python,
> JavaScript, Wasm, Godot, and Golang.

Yes, things didn't quite go according to plan for them in the long run.
I s'pose I should clarify that I was thinking of write-once-run-
anywhere more in terms of GUI development and redistributable binaries;
it's true that C/stdlib is about as portable as it gets, and C/POSIX
very nearly so, but that takes a separate build step for every target
platform (and in the freenix world, every change in the ABI.) Which is
certainly possible provided the application is open-source, but would
be nice not to *have* to do. And once you get the various GUI toolkits
involved, the problem becomes even worse :/

Java, on paper, promised a nice solution to that problem, and for a
brief moment it even looked like a viable one; unfortunately, it went
astray pretty quickly, and never recovered. More unforunately still,
nothing since has really filled the same niche, and so it's still the
best we've got in that regard...which, yes, is maddening.

(Also: 02026 = 1046? My condolences on the loss of Bishops Gerard and
Bestricus...unless you're rooting for Vata & co.)

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What’s Your Least Favourite Programming Language? Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-10-31 06:48 +0000
  Re: What’s Your Least Favourite Programming Language? David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2025-10-31 13:28 +0100
  Re: What’s Your Least Favourite Programming Language? John Ames <commodorejohn@gmail.com> - 2025-10-31 08:17 -0700
    Re: What’s Your Least Favourite Programming Language? bart <bc@freeuk.com> - 2025-10-31 22:47 +0000
    Re: What’s Your Least Favourite Programming Language? Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-11-01 06:26 +0000
    Re: What’s Your Least Favourite Programming Language? BGB <cr88192@gmail.com> - 2025-11-03 14:05 -0600
      Re: What’s Your Least Favourite Programming Language? Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-11-03 20:29 +0000
        Re: What’s Your Least Favourite Programming Language? BGB <cr88192@gmail.com> - 2025-11-03 14:55 -0600
          Re: What’s Your Least Favourite Programming Language? Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-11-03 23:10 +0000
            Re: What’s Your Least Favourite Programming Language? BGB <cr88192@gmail.com> - 2025-11-04 12:02 -0600
              Re: What’s Your Least Favourite Programming Language? Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-11-04 20:32 +0000
      Re: What’s Your Least Favourite Programming Language? John Ames <commodorejohn@gmail.com> - 2025-11-03 15:56 -0800
    Re: What’s Your Least Favourite Programming Language? Kragen Javier Sitaker <kragen@canonical.org> - 2026-08-27 21:11 -0300
      Re: What’s Your Least Favourite Programming Language? Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-08-28 04:42 +0000
        Write Once, Run Anywhere (was Re: What’s Your Least Favourite Programming Language?) Kragen Javier Sitaker <kragen@canonical.org> - 2026-08-28 16:43 -0300
          Re: What’s Your Least Favourite Programming Language? Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-08-28 22:37 +0000
            the history of Java in Android (was Re: What’s Your Least Favourite Programming Language?) Kragen Javier Sitaker <kragen@canonical.org> - 2026-08-28 20:27 -0300
              Re: the history of Java in Android (was Re: What’s Your Least Favourite Programming Language?) Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-08-29 01:30 +0000
                Re: the history of Java in Android (was Re: What’s Your Least Favourite Programming Language?) Kragen Javier Sitaker <kragen@canonical.org> - 2026-08-29 15:24 -0300
                Re: the history of Java in Android (was Re: What’s Your Least Favourite Programming Language?) Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-08-29 21:57 +0000
            Python deliberately breaking backward compatibility (was Re: What’s Your Least Favourite Programming Language?) Kragen Javier Sitaker <kragen@canonical.org> - 2026-08-28 21:03 -0300
              Re: Python deliberately breaking backward compatibility (was Re: What’s Your Least Favourite Programming Language?) Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com> - 2026-08-28 18:10 -0700
                [meta] Date-formats in postings (was Re: Python deliberately breaking backward compatibility (was Re: What’s Your Least Favourite Programming Language?)) Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> - 2026-08-29 06:39 +0200
              Re: What’s Your Least Favourite Programming Language? Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-08-29 01:42 +0000
      Re: What’s Your Least Favourite Programming Language? John Ames <commodorejohn@gmail.com> - 2026-08-28 09:59 -0700
  Re: What’s Your Least Favourite Programming Language? Kragen Javier Sitaker <kragen@canonical.org> - 2026-08-27 20:09 -0300

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