I'm sorry to disappoint any of you long-time programmers out there, but I just got off of a long conversation with one of my programmer friends and he is claiming that Java is the future and that C++ is getting very outdated. I wasn't too sure whether or not to take his word because I had heard otherwise from another long-time programmer friend. Basically, the points my (1st) friend made against and for Java were the following:
Pros- Lightweight/small file size
- Cross-platform/Linux, PC, Mac
- Partially compiled/faster to process in comparison to interpreted languages
Cons- Not built-in/internal on Linux, Mac, or PC/slower processing speed
- Less user-created libraries available/less documentation
- Requires Java to run/forces user to download Java
- Still slower because it's not completely compiled
On the phone, however, my friend assured me that the Linux kernel natively supports Java and that it is no longer required as a supplementary download. He also said that from some of his own programs he wrote in C++ and Java, the one in Java outperformed the one in C++ by a long shot on his Mac (which doesn't internally support Java).
Googling this to find out didn't seem to answer any questions. Can someone confirm or deny the myth so that I can make my decision on whether to learn C++ before Java? Thanks.
