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CASE_STUDY_1

                                                March  5, 2004
                                                April 11, 2007

Philip Greenspun wrote a web log
entry in 2003 titled "Java is the
SUV of programming tools":
                                  [ref]

This is the first paragraph:

   "Our students this semester in 6.171, Software
   Engineering for Internet Applications have
   divided themselves into roughly three groups.
   One third has chosen to use Microsoft .NET,
   building pages in C#/ASP.NET connecting to SQL
   Server.  One third has chosen to use scripting
   languages such as PHP connecting to PostgreSQL
   and sometimes Oracle.  The final third, which
   seems to be struggling the most, is using Java
   Server Pages (JSP) with Oracle on Linux.
   JSP is fantastically simpler than "full-blown
   J2EE", which is the recommended-by-Sun way of
   building applications, but still it seems to
   be too complex for seniors and graduate
   students in the MIT computer science program,
   despite the fact that they all had at least
   one semester of Java experience in 6.170."

I think this is really interesting because you
don't often hear about real, direct comparisons
between programming languages...

This isn't just someone whining that whatever
syntax they're familiar with is what god intended;
or insisting that Wirth said it and they believe it
so that settles it.

It bothers me a lot that "Computer Science"
won't admit that they need to lose some
mathematicians and hire some social             MODEST_PROPOSAL
scientists in order to determine what kind
of computer language really works better.

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