[Ffmpeg-devel] Re: FFMPEG code a mess

[Dave Dodge]

On Sun, Sep 18, 2005 at 11:11:38PM +0100, M?ns Rullg?rd wrote:
> - Everything has to be an object.

Ironically I've seen OO purists complain that Java _doesn't_ require
everything to be an object (referring to the already-mentioned numeric
types).

> - No unsigned types.

How they managed to design the language without at least a proper
unsigned "byte" or "octet" type boggles the mind.  Gosling's been
quoted a few times saying things like unsigned math is "too
complicated".

In some ways, Java is nice because it has standardized cross-platform
support for threading and networking.  It's also a relatively simple
language, especially compared to something like C++.  I've used it to
experiment with ideas and prototype things that had to run on
e.g. Solaris and Windows, with good results.  But the lack of unsigned
types makes actually implementing network protocols and interfacing
with native data formats very painful.

Some other issues with Java:

  - It's a moving target.  Developers jump to use features from the
    very latest release, while many users only have older JVMs readily
    installed.  When I did my own Java coding I usually stuck to Java
    1.1 even though at least 1.3 was available.  Granted, my code had
    no GUI so I didn't have any AWT/Swing concerns.

  - The Sun license is problematic for Linux distributions.  See above
    point about users not having the latest version readily installed.

  - I know someone who just recently had trouble with some work
    requiring lots of address space on an x86_64 machine, because a
    64-bit-clean JVM wasn't available on that architecture.  His final
    architecture will be ia64 but he was hoping to prototype on x86_64
    in the meantime.

                                                  -Dave Dodge