Re: the advantages of garbage collection

[Joe Pluta <joepluta@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Christen, Duane J. wrote:
> I'm trying to understand Steve's reasoning on why RPG is bad because it doesn't have GC.
>   
Trying to understand Steve is easy: if it's .NET, it's good.  Even if 
you don't need it, if it's in .NET and you don't have it, your language 
is bad.  Similarly, if it's not in .NET and you *do* have it, it's also bad.

In the MS-centric view, nothing is good until Microsoft adds a (usually 
incompatible) version of it to .NET.  For example, LINQ is simply the MS 
version of OQL, which has been around for quite some time.  MS copies 
technologies like OQL with the idea of "embrace, extend, extinguish".  
This actually worked for a long time; everything from DOS to Windows to 
Office.

However, that technique stopped working with Java; Microsoft's J# could 
never match Java.  Indeed, the pace of the industry has gotten so fast 
that Microsoft usually ends up incorporating an older technology like 
OQL.  Rather than actually integrating, they spend time (usually a 
couple of years) "dot-netting" it, while the state of the technology 
rushes on.  In this case, a good example is SBQL, which has a much 
better syntax.

But now that MS has finally released LINQ, count on Steve to say that 
it's a new concept that nobody has ever seen and that if you don't have 
it your language sucks.

Joe