Posts by Mike Allen

Hello, Kotlin: Another programming language for JVM and JavaScript

Scala is far more mature, as things stand

Kotlin has a lot of similarities with Scala, which has IMHO been far a better JVM language than Java for quite some time.

By far the best feature that Kotlin brings to the table is it's attempt to rid programming of nulls. Scala had an experimental feature (based on the NotNull marker trait) to do something similar, but it has since been deprecated due to some technical issues.

Otherwise, Scala is currently a lot more mature than Kotlin and has many more useful features than both Kotlin and Java. As for it's ease of use, Scala does have a bit of a steep learning curve, not least of which is re-training your brain to code using functional programming principles. However, it is in many ways a simpler language than Java, yet you can still write Java-esque code in Scala if that's what you're most comfortable with.

Otherwise, macros, implicit conversions, implicit arguments, traits/mixins, type inference, fully object-based type system (including primitives and functions), custom operators, ability to create DSLs, etc. etc. make Scala a boilerplate-free alternative to Java. No-one needs Kotlin as things stand.

HP's WebOS mess: When smartphone assets go toxic

Are you serious?

"Looming in the distance is the prospect of the epic Oracle-Google court case. Informed technical opinion all points to a heavy defeat for Google."

Whose informed opinion is that then? Lewis Page's?

Dell moves 40,000 Ubuntu PCs

Considering how Dell markets Ubuntu...

Considering that Dell seems to have no interest whatsoever in actually selling its Ubuntu systems, I'd say that 40,000 is quite an achievement.

You have to go to a special site to buy them (they don't simply offer a choice of Microsoft or Ubuntu operating systems on a machine, which would allow you to see just how must you're really paying for M$ software), you're given a warning before you can even proceed to look at them, the small sub-set of their machines have limited hardware options, the Microsoft-based machines often work out cheaper when you take into account special offers, etc. (at best, the Ubuntu machines work out $50 less - here in the US - which surely means that Dell are making substantially larger margins on the Ubuntu machines) and their web-site carries the familiar "{Your PC make here} recommends Microsoft Vista..." on every page. I also doubt whether their tele-sales staff ever mention Ubuntu either...

I'd really like to buy an Ubuntu (or, at least, Microsoft Tax-free) PC from Dell, but they're going to have to expand their range and make Ubuntu an option on their main pages before I'll purchase such a system from them.

One might almost suspect Microsoft of dictating to Dell how they might "sell" Linux-based systems...