At 17:53 21.02.00 -0500, agree at carltonfields.com wrote:
>> Most people don't have this deep insight in Java (a lot of > even don't
want to) and still can create greate applications.
>
>Without meaning to sound petty, I've yet to see the first great Java
application, even one created by someone with deep insight therein or thereto.

This probably depends on what you call "great".  IMHO, Borland's JBuilder
is a nice piece of work.  It's fast and runs very well on Windows, Solaris
and Linux without problems.

>Nor can I agree that the Javadoc base is so all-fired wonderful.  There is
little information available in Javadoc that I can't get with a few
keypresses in Squeak

One advantage is - as somebody else already wrote - it shows you very well
where you forgot your comments.  It's not easy to write good comments but
if you succeed (and there're a few very helpful articles at Sun's web site
that discuss how to do good documentation) JavaDoc generates IMHO very
readable documentation you can even print out and read without a computer.
IMHO, this is an advantage.  I don't want online-only documentation.

>and I can always printOut if I need to get something static on paper.  

That's not the same.  I'm not interested in the sources, just the comments.
 Sure, you can create a similar tool for Squeak without much effort - but
the point is, Sun did this already for Java and for Squeak it's again just
the possibility.

>No reasonable person can say that the Squeak documentation is great.  It
isn't, and needs much improvement.  But it is getting there, books are
being written, folks are undertaking to write more doco, and in time will
do fine.  

I think, if you compare the volunteer's work on Squeak and the work on Java
done by dozens if not hundered of paided Sun employees, then Squeak is
really great.  Yes.

>On the other hand, I'm not convinced that Java can or will ever realize
its promises -- performance is still spotty, platform-dependance beyond
trivial programs is almost as difficult in Java as in C

Who cares whether it's true or not?  That's not the point here.  We're
comparing just documentation.  Perhaps the Python argument - also raised
here by somebody - is better because Python is also a (mainly)
volunteer-based open source project.  Guido v Rossum spend a lot of time of
documenting the system and writing tutorials and abstracts about certain
parts of the system.  This helped to both stabilize and improve the system
and probably also enlarged the user base.


bye
--
Stefan Matthias Aust  //  Bevor wir fallen, fallen wir lieber auf.