mdj wrote:
> On Feb 8, 8:00 am, Steven Hirsch  wrote:
> 
>> It seems like every major application I install that's written in Java comes
>> with its own huge discrete JRE.  That's almost a tacit admission of the lack
>> of interoperability.  Anyone can write bad code, but there just
seems to be a
>> lot of it written in Java.  Probably a lot of good examples out there, but I
>> just haven't run into much of them .
> 
> It does tend to feel worse due the "payload size" of the JRE, but
> really, most platforms are plagued by this problem. Vendors will
> usually take the path of least resistance(tm), and simply bundle
> dependencies as a part of their distribution.
> 
> A classic problem you do get in the Java world is this one: Vendor
> writes app that depends on newer features that are not (yet) a part of
> the standard runtime. When a new runtime comes along, the feature is
> often folded in, but teams don't typically get the time to rationalise
> their codebase against the newer versions, resulting in duplication
> and additional complexity.
> 
> It's almost universally true in the software industry that 'just
> barely good enough' is seen as acceptable, since product lifetimes are
> so short. I spend a lot of time trying to convince phb's that the
> 'technical debt' incurred by taking the shortest path ends up being
> paid for over and again for each iteration, and there are real
> benefits to be reaped from cleaning it up.

As I used to say, "quick and dirty" is never quick but always dirty.
;-)

-michael

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