NYCPHP Meetup

[Paul Houle]

edward potter wrote:
> Java seems to have a number of fits and starts over the  last 10
> years, but hanging on. Python can of course be used for all things web
> based, and can also create full blown applications too.  (bittorrent
> for one), I'm still just a beginner.
    Java is my language of choice for jobs that aren't a good fit for 
PHP.  Java is fast for numeric and symbol processing work -- better than 
half the speed of FORTRAN or C,  with the software engineering 
advantages of objects,  garbage collection and all that.

    Last summer I wrote a sudoku solver in Java -- the program can end 
up trying a large number of combinations if the puzzle is difficult,  so 
I wanted it to be in a language faster than PHP.

    My son got two copies of "Chutes and Ladders" for Christmas,  so 
I've been interested in writing a Java program that plays a few billion 
games and reports on the statistics.

    I'm not a big fan of Python.  I really got into JPython around 
1999,  but after wasting half a day tracking down a program that didn't 
work right because of an invisible change in whitespace in a source file 
I got back from someone who used a different text editor,  I decided I'd 
had enough.