[Beowulf] [External] Re: Clustering vs Hadoop/spark

[Prentice Bisbal]

On 11/24/20 11:45 AM, Jonathan Aquilina via Beowulf wrote:
> When I learned java as part of my degree I used to see it as clunky why go for an interpreted language such as java over something more low level like c/c++ on a traditional cluster?

Technically Java isn't really an interpreted language - its compiled to 
an intermediate Java Virtual Machine bytecode, nor is it compiled to 
ruin natively on hardware. It's kind a hybrid that gives you the worst 
of both worlds - the need to compile before execution, with none of the 
performance of a native binary. ;)

As for teaching Java, I think teachers like it for teaching 
object-oriented programming because it is a "pure" object-oriented 
language, unlike C++. C++ is a superset of the C programming language, 
so any C code is technically valid C++ code, too. This allows all sorts 
of ugly hybrid code to be created, and when learning object-oriented 
programming in C++ years ago, I have to admit some of my homework 
assignments that I turned in were probably 99% C, and only 1% C++. Java 
prevents this, and forces students to right object-oriented code instead 
of purely procedural code. At least I *think* that's the argument for 
teaching Java.

I do know in HS they teach Java because the AP  computer science test is 
based on Java.

Also, with Java, you don't have to worry about low-level issues like 
freeing and allocating memory and doing pointer arithmetic. Not having 
to worry about those low-level issues allows a student to focus more on 
the programming concepts. I knew I screw up dereferencing pointers A LOT 
when learning C and C++


-- 
Prentice