Evolution of mainstream programming languages: simplicity versus complexity.
- by Giorgio
I had posted this question on http://stackoverflow.com but I was suggested that it may be more appropriate to post it on this forum. I did a quick search on this site and it seems to me that this question has not been asked yet. Please give me a hint if the topic has been raised already by someone else.
Update
I have rephrased this question, removed personal opinions and made it shorter. I hope in this way it is better suited for this forum.
By looking at the recent development of Java (Java 7) and C++ (C++0x) I see that new features are added to these languages. For sure this makes it easier to use certain programming idioms, adding to the productivity of developers. On the other hand, there might be the following risks
A language becomes too big, complex, and difficult to understand.
It lacks coherence in the design, e.g. if it mixes different paradigms like object-orientation and functional programming, which might not fit well together.
Questions: what is more important to you as a developer: to have a rich language that captures a large collection of programming idioms or to have a small language that aims at coherence and simplicity (of course, with a good deal of libraries and tools accompanying it)? Or is it possible to have both?
With respect to these issues: How do you judge the current evolutions of main-stream programming languages like Java or C++? Are they becoming too complex, less intuitive? Do they have enough features? Do they need more?
Are they still easy enough to understand and use?
