最近仿佛有一种论调越来越流行，就是java终究将取代C++，一直用java所谓的优点来指责C++，而C++是我最喜欢的面向对象语言。最近看到了一篇评论，是C++之父Bjarne Stroustrup发表的，我想也说出了我的心里话，读来让人心情舒畅斗志昂扬，那么转贴过来，欢迎大家评论：
Is Java the language you would have designed if you didn’t have to be compatible with C?
No. Java isn’t even close. If people insist on comparing C++ and Java - as they seem to do - I suggest they read The Design and Evolution of C++ (D&E) to see why C++ is the way it is, and consider both languages in the light of the design criteria I set for C++. Those criteria will obviously differ from the criteria of Sun’s Java team. Despite the syntactic similarities, C++ and Java are very different languages. In many ways, Java seems closer to Smalltalk than to C++.
Much of the relative simplicity of Java is - like for most new languages - partly an illusion and partly a function of its incompleteness. As time passes, Java will grow significantly in size and complexity. It will double or triple in size and grow implementation-dependent extensions or libraries. That is the way every commercially successful language has developed. Just look at any language you consider successful on a large scale. I know of no exceptions, and there are good reasons for this phenomenon. [I wrote this before 2000; now see a preview of Java 1.5.]
Java isn’t platform independent; it is a platform. Like Windows, it is a proprietary commercial platform. That is, you can write programs for Windows/Intel or Java/JVM, and in each case you are writing code for a platform owned by a single corporation and tweaked for the commercial benefit of that corporation. It has been pointed out that you can write programs in any language for the JVM and associated operating systems facilities. However, the JVM, etc., are heavily biased in favor of Java. It is nowhere near being a general reasonably language-neutral VM/OS.
Personally, I’ll stick to reasonably portable C++ for most of the kind of work I think most about and use a variety of languages for the rest.
以下是译文：
“如果人们非要拿C++和Java来作比较，我建议他们去阅读The Design and Evolution of C++，看看C++为什么是今天这个样子，用我在设计C++时遵从的原则来检验这两种语言。这些原则与SUN的Java开发小组所持的理念显然是不同的。除了表面语法的相似性之外，C++与Java是截然不同的语言。在很多方面，Java更像Smalltalk（译者按：我学习Java时用的是Sun的培训教材，里面清楚地写道：Java在设计上采用了与C++相似的语法，与Smalltalk相似的语义。所以可以说Java与C++是貌合神离，与Smalltalk才是心有灵犀）。Java语言相对简单，这部分是一种错觉，部分是因为这种语言还不完整。随着时间的推移，Java在体积和复杂程度上都会大大增长。在体积上它会增长两到三倍，而且会出现一些实现相关的扩展或者库。这是一条每个成功的商业语言都必须走过的发展之路。随便分析一种你认为在很大范围内取得了成功的语言，我知道肯定是无有例外者，而且实际上这非常有道理。
上边这段话是在Java 1.1推出之前写的。我确信Java需要类似模板的机制，并且需要增强对于固有类型的支持。简单地说，就是为了基本的完整性也应该做这些工作。另外还需要做很多小的改动，大部分是扩展。1998年秋，我从James Gosling（Java语言的创始人——译者）那里得到一份建议书，说是要在Java中增加固有类型、操作符重载以及数学计算支持。还有一篇论文，是数学分析领域的世界级大师，伯克利大学的W. Kahan教授所写的How Java’s Floating-Point Hurts Everyone Everywhere（“且看Java的浮点运算如何危害了普天下的芸芸众生”——译者），揭露了Java的一些秘密。
我发现在电视和出版物中关于Java的鼓吹是不准确的，而且气势汹汹，让人讨厌。大肆叫嚣凡是非Java的代码都是垃圾，这是对程序员的侮辱；建议把所有的保留代码都用Java重写，这是丧心病狂，既不现实也不负责任。Sun和他的追随者似乎觉得为了对付微软罪恶的“帝国时代”，就必须如此自吹自擂。但是侮辱和欺诈只会把那些喜欢使用不同编程语言的程序员逼到微软阵营里去。
Java并非平台无关，它本身就是平台。跟Windows一样，它也是一个专有的商业平台。也就是说，你可以为Windows/Intel编写代码，也可以为Java/JVM编写代码，在任何一种情况下，你都是在为一个属于某个公司的平台写代码，这些代码都是与该公司的商业利益扯在一起的。当然你可以使用任何一种语言，结合操作系统的机制来编写可供JVM执行的程序，但是JVM之类的东西是强烈地偏向于Java语言的。它一点也不像是通用的、公平的、语言中立的VM/OS。
私下里，我会坚持使用可移植的C++作大部分工作，用不同的语言作余下的工作。
（"Java is not platform-independent, it is the platform"，B. S的这句评语对于C++用户有着很大的影响，译者在国外的几个新闻组里看到，有些C++高手甚至把这句话作为自己的签名档，以表明对Java的态度和誓死捍卫C++的决心。实际上有很多程序员不光是把自己喜爱的语言当成一种工具，更当成一种信仰。——译者）” |
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