Robust

Hype

Java is intended for writing programs that must be reliable in a variety of ways. Java puts a lot of emphasis on early checking for possible problems, later dynamic (runtime) checking, and eliminating situations that are error prone.

--The Java Language, An Overview

Reality

Java is one of the most robust languages I've ever seen. Automatic memory management and garbage collection is the biggest contributor here. Strong type checking also helps. Bugs, especially system crashing bugs, are rare. Still, they're not quite non-existent. In particular, you can overtax Java's thread system by creating many compute intensive threads. The exact details vary from VM to VM but 2000 threads each calculating the Mandelbrot set will hang or crash pretty much any VM.

Bottom Line: A-


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Copyright 1997 Elliotte Rusty Harold
elharo@sunsite.unc.edu
Last Modified Sunday, March 9, 1997