Programming question

[Kuciwalker]

Simple array, yes, but aren't we discusing multidimensional arrays ? Strings ?

Dude, how do you think Java implements multidimensional arrays?

And do you REALLY need me to post the implementation of String? IT IS JUST A WRAPPER AROUND A CHAR[].

[Kuciwalker]

Oh, and overhead can actually be an issue .

No, I'm sorry, the overhead of a method call in Java is never an issue unless you are completely incompetent.

[Kuciwalker]

Do we really have to play the "BlackCat defends some dumb comment he made long past the point that it's obvious to everyone else that he's wrong" game again?

[Kuciwalker]

Really? Okay, I was under the false impression that they were some special structure or whatnot.

The most annoying thing about string arrays is Java's refusal to overload == to test string equality as opposed to just comparing the references. I don't know, I feel like they should have just made an exception for strings.

No, that would be horrible. The correct answer is to make == syntactic sugar for an equals() call and make === or some other operator test reference equality.

[Asher]

Actually, arrays kind of suck. It's hard to come up with a case where I'd actually want to use them if a halfway decent collections library is available.

Hope you're joking.

The performance differences between collections and arrays is significant. Less so in Java, but still significant. Further still, iterating through lists is usually significantly faster also.

[Hauldren Collider]

Oh, and overhead can actually be an issue .

Overhead of this kind is not really an issue in Java as it's running in a VM anyways and the overhead of function calls is so minute.

You start to notice function calls when you're doing high-performance parallel or graphics computing but you're probably using C, C++ or Fortran for that in which case much of the coding guidelines of Java no longer apply.

When I did a simulation of n-body planetary motion in Parallel Computing last year, there was one place where taking out a function call actually noticeably sped my program up. But you are unlikely to hit that issue in java.

[Kuciwalker]

Hope you're joking.

The performance differences between collections and arrays is staggering.

Which language and which collections? As above, ArrayList is just a shim over arrays anyway...

[Hauldren Collider]

No, that would be horrible. The correct answer is to make == syntactic sugar for an equals() call and make === or some other operator test reference equality.

That's one way of doing it. I would actually go the other route and do === is syntactic sugar for equals() because I think (rather subjectively/arbitrarily) that it would be more consistent with the way PHP and Javascript use === to test for type and value equality.

My point was mainly that it's annoying to test equality of strings and that I don't think there are compelling reasons not to make it more convenient.

[BlackCat]

No, I'm sorry, the overhead of a method call in Java is never an issue unless you are completely incompetent.

You are just joking -I at least hope that you are

[Asher]

Holy ****, you are dumb.

HERE ARE THE RELEVANT PIECES OF CODE FROM ARRAYLIST.JAVA IN THE ACTUAL ****ING JDK VERSION 6.18:

ArrayList is an exception, not a rule.

[Asher]

Which language and which collections? As above, ArrayList is just a shim over arrays anyway...

You're cherrypicking ArrayList because it's just an Array which implements the List interface.

I thought it was clear the concept of the discussion was arrays vs real collections. An ArrayList is, for all intents and purposes, an array. It just comes with a List interface to it.

[Hauldren Collider]

[QUOTE=Asher;5879236][QUOTE=Kuciwalker;5879219]Holy ****, you are dumb.

HERE ARE THE RELEVANT PIECES OF CODE FROM ARRAYLIST.JAVA IN THE ACTUAL ****ING JDK VERSION 6.18:

ArrayList is an exception, not a rule.

Actually LinkedList, HashMap, etc are all pretty much thin shims as I recall.

[DriXnaK]

lol Man, you guys are really going at it.

[Kuciwalker]

You're cherrypicking ArrayList because it's just an Array which implements the List interface.

I thought it was clear the concept of the discussion was arrays vs real collections.

And I thought it was clear the discussion was "should you ever use arrays, or should you use the relevant Collections class?" If you need an array you should use ArrayList. This is 1000x as true in Java with the half-assed generics.

[Kuciwalker]

Actually LinkedList, HashMap, etc are all pretty much thin shims as I recall.

Uh, what is LinkedList supposed to be a shim over?