Dive Into Java?

[Grant Edwards]

Re: OT: Sarcasm and irony

On 2006-10-11, Ben Finney <bignose+hate s-spam@benfinney. id.auwrote:

Grant Edwards <grante@visi.co mwrites:
>

>Sarcasm is a form of irony. Irony is when what is meant is
>different from the obvious literal meaning of the statement.

>
Irony need not have anything to do with the meaning and intent of the
speaker. Indeed, irony can occur when there is no communication at
all; an ironic outcome does not require anyone to have said or
communicated anything.
>

>Like Alanis Morisette said about the song "Isn't it Ironic": What's
>ironic about the song is that it doesn't actually contain any irony.

>
What source do you have for Morissette saying that?

I read it on some english-usage web site -- I wouldn't regard
it as very authoritative in regards to the Alanis Morisette
quote.

I've seen many people saying it *about* her song, but nothing
from her that isn't just repeating what others have said.

--
Grant Edwards grante Yow! I request a weekend
at in Havana with Phil
visi.com Silvers!

[Grant Edwards]

Re: OT: Sarcasm and irony

On 2006-10-11, mensanator@aol. com <mensanator@aol .comwrote:

>Like Alanis Morisette said about the song "Isn't it Ironic":
>What's ironic about the song is that it doesn't actually
>contain any irony.

>
Any? Don't people plan June weddings thinking the weather
will be nice? And isn't one of the defintions of irony when
things turn out the opposite of what you expect?

Not really, no.

--
Grant Edwards grante Yow! - if it GLISTENS,
at gobble it!!
visi.com

[mensanator@aol.com]

Re: OT: Sarcasm and irony


Grant Edwards wrote:

On 2006-10-11, mensanator@aol. com <mensanator@aol .comwrote:
>

Like Alanis Morisette said about the song "Isn't it Ironic":
What's ironic about the song is that it doesn't actually
contain any irony.

Any? Don't people plan June weddings thinking the weather
will be nice? And isn't one of the defintions of irony when
things turn out the opposite of what you expect?

>
Not really, no.

American Heritage Dictionary:
irony: 4. Incongruity between what might be expected to happen
and what actually occurs.

>
--
Grant Edwards grante Yow! - if it GLISTENS,
at gobble it!!
visi.com

[Grant Edwards]

Re: OT: Sarcasm and irony

On 2006-10-11, mensanator@aol. com <mensanator@aol .comwrote:

>
Grant Edwards wrote:

>On 2006-10-11, mensanator@aol. com <mensanator@aol .comwrote:
>>

>Like Alanis Morisette said about the song "Isn't it Ironic":
>What's ironic about the song is that it doesn't actually
>contain any irony.
>
Any? Don't people plan June weddings thinking the weather
will be nice? And isn't one of the defintions of irony when
things turn out the opposite of what you expect?

>>
>Not really, no.

>
American Heritage Dictionary:
irony: 4. Incongruity between what might be expected to happen
and what actually occurs.

Yup, you're right. That seems to be a usage frowned upon by
old-school types, but it appears to have become common enough
that it's made it into dictionaries.


--
Grant Edwards grante Yow! How's it going in
at those MODULAR LOVE UNITS??
visi.com

[Bjoern Schliessmann]

Re: Dive Into Java?

Diez B. Roggisch wrote:

Yes. You can for example create a constructor for object Foo,
which then is implicitly chosen when assigning an int to a
variable of that kind. So it acts as a casting operator. I call
that wicked, and subtle.
>
class Foo {
int _arg;
public:
Foo(int arg) {
_arg = arg;
}
};
>
int main() {
Foo f = 10;
}

Just looks like Java's

String spam = "eggs";

Who cares for the reason - it is there, isn't it? You are the one
claiming that a new language should get rid of old concepts, btw.

Is C++ new? :) IIRC it's well 10 years older than Java, and that's
quite a lot in IT. Apart from this, Java is constantly evolving
(through Sun), where C++ is quite a standard since <= 1998.

Where is your money, and where your mouth?

I'm not discussing for money ;)

That is a matter of taste - but in the same way, we could argue
about C++ and C, can't we?

ACK.

>That's not exactly my point. What if I just wanted to build my
>own interface compatible class ... impossible.

I don't understand that.

If I'd like to write a class that is interface compatible to Java's
String, so e.g. that I can use it with "+" operator or the
simplified construction (String a = "b";).

So what? Since when is compiler optimization a bad thing?

I don't offense compiler optimization, but the clunkiness of
those "special rules for String only" additions.

What do you think happens all the time when mixing types in C++?

Mh, surely no convenience substitution in the sources for one class
only.

And I know of some very elaborated schemes called "common base
class idiom" for e.g. template-based vector classes to introduce
allocation optimization to arithmetic expressions in C++.

I don't ;) Too high for me.

The code _generated_ by the java compiler, and the C++ compiler,
is not the issue here.

Full ACK. (perhaps we were misunderstandin g each other)

and in C++, you can do:
>
char *a = "1";
char *b = "2";
char *c = a + b;
>
But with a totally different, unexpected outcome.. I know where
*I* start laughing here.

Mh, in other languages you also *can* do stupid things. I'm thinking
about weird Python class designs. But Python's lack of private
variables isn't bad just because of this, is it?

The way is not awkward, it is called auto-boxing/unboxing and
works very well.

But it looks weird. Why not use classes for basic types? Is
performance really the reason? It kind of splits the language
style.

And this is more than matched by the subtle differences between
>
Foo a;
Foo &a;
Foo *a;

I don't think that's too subtle. But, perhaps, just because I'm used
to C++. It has a little bit too many compatibility features.

But I'd rather like to have several options than being forced in one
way.

Regards,


Björn

--
BOFH excuse #449:

greenpeace free'd the mallocs

[Diez B. Roggisch]

Re: Dive Into Java?

Bjoern Schliessmann schrieb:

Diez B. Roggisch wrote:
>

>Yes. You can for example create a constructor for object Foo,
>which then is implicitly chosen when assigning an int to a
>variable of that kind. So it acts as a casting operator. I call
>that wicked, and subtle.
>>
>class Foo {
> int _arg;
>public:
> Foo(int arg) {
> _arg = arg;
> }
>};
>>
>int main() {
> Foo f = 10;
>}

>
Just looks like Java's
>
String spam = "eggs";

You don't seem to understand what is happening here. The fact that
string literals in java exist has nothing to do with an implicit type
casting as above example shows.

>Who cares for the reason - it is there, isn't it? You are the one
>claiming that a new language should get rid of old concepts, btw.

>
Is C++ new? :) IIRC it's well 10 years older than Java, and that's
quite a lot in IT. Apart from this, Java is constantly evolving
(through Sun), where C++ is quite a standard since <= 1998.

C++ was new, nobody forced them to keep pointers around.

If I'd like to write a class that is interface compatible to Java's
String, so e.g. that I can use it with "+" operator or the
simplified construction (String a = "b";).

That isn't possible with python, too. It _is_ possible with C++, yes, as
my own example above shows, but at the cost of complex semantics.

And the +-operator can be used when you have a toString-method.

I don't offense compiler optimization, but the clunkiness of
those "special rules for String only" additions.

Python has those clunky rules as well as C++ - or don't you write
character literals like

"abcd"

in C++ as well? Where exactly is that clunky?

>The way is not awkward, it is called auto-boxing/unboxing and
>works very well.

>
But it looks weird. Why not use classes for basic types? Is
performance really the reason? It kind of splits the language
style.

For the same reason ints and floats aren't objects _internally_ in C++
as well - optimization. C++ did go a better way here by treating ints as
objects syntactically, but the distinction is most of the times removed
from java as well since 1.5.

And this is more than matched by the subtle differences between

>>
>Foo a;
>Foo &a;
>Foo *a;

>
I don't think that's too subtle. But, perhaps, just because I'm used
to C++. It has a little bit too many compatibility features.
>
But I'd rather like to have several options than being forced in one
way.

But choices let you make more errors - which was my point from the
beginning: java is a limited language, and I don't like it too much. But
it makes it hard to do things wrong. C++ makes it hard to make them right.

Diez

[Bjoern Schliessmann]

Re: Dive Into Java?

Diez B. Roggisch wrote:

You don't seem to understand what is happening here. The fact that
string literals in java exist has nothing to do with an implicit
type casting as above example shows.

Whoops. "10", arg and _arg /are/ integers, right?

C++ was new, nobody forced them to keep pointers around.

For compatibility reasons to C it seems quite necessary.

[interface compatibility to String]

That isn't possible with python, too.

No? Mh, perhaps it's too late for my brain tonight ;)

Python has those clunky rules as well as C++ - or don't you write
character literals like
>
"abcd"
>
in C++ as well? Where exactly is that clunky?

IMHO, that only for String class

String spam = "eggs";

works (in Java).

But choices let you make more errors - which was my point from the
beginning: java is a limited language, and I don't like it too
much. But it makes it hard to do things wrong. C++ makes it hard
to make them right.

I agree. *If* one is an absolute beginner with programming. C++ may
have too many weird options in places where Java has one possible
solution.

Regards,


Björn

--
BOFH excuse #364:

Sand fleas eating the Internet cables