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>nobody said that.

What's your definition of "nobody"? :-)

Actually, many people said it all the time -- especially during 1995/1996 when Java hype was gearing up. It was touted as a selling point in Java books, JavaWorld articles, usenet postings, etc.

Examples:

--Java also implements automatic garbage collection, so you don't have to worry about memory management issues. All of this frees you from having to worry about dangling pointers, invalid pointer references, and memory leaks, so you can spend your time developing the functionality of your programs."[1]

--Programmers can be relatively fearless about dealing with memory because they don’t have to worry about it getting messed up.[2]

--Java also implements automatic garbage collection, so the programmer does not have to worry about memory management issues.[3]

--The entire interaction with memory is worry-free in Java.[4]

The issue of "GC pauses" or "extra memory footprint required for performance" is not mentioned in any of those sources. It's not Java's fault that it's presented this way because every technology is hyped by only listing the advantages and avoiding the talk about disadvantages.

[1]1996 edition of David Flanagan's "Java in a Nutshell" -- https://books.google.com/books?ei=ZDHOVOztD4z8sASIsoKYAg&id=...

(he removed the phrase "don't have to worry about memory management issues" from newer editions of the book: https://books.google.com/books?id=mvzgNSmHEUAC&printsec=fron...)

[2]James Gosling - http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~mckeeman/cs118/references/Origi...

[3]http://www.trailstone.com/softdeve/java/overview.html

[4]http://wellscs.com/robert/java/productivity.htm



I see a very big gap between "memory issues" and "memory management issues" ... for me the first thing is "thinking about memory, how much you will use, etc.", the second is "Okay, I've allocated a string here. Who the heck will be the one that cleans it up?" - high level languages fix the second case (if you LIKE the fix, that's a different topic, but it is a fix), they don't (and cannot and never were claimed to) fix the first case, because that would need an AI like runtime environment.

(Okay, your quote [4] is actually talking about both, so .. one of four examples fits?)


Few have said it since those foolish comments back in 1995. That pretty much is 'nobody'.


No, people still say those things. Try saying something in favor of C++, you'll see what I mean. :)




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