Hi all,

A paper "Scalable Programming Languages" by Mike Vanier at
http://www.cs.caltech.edu/~mvanier/hacking/rants/scalable_computer_programming_l
anguages.html

makes an assertion about the Java Classloader mechanism as "On the
other hand, my colleague Donnie Pinkston, who has forgotten more about
Java than I'll ever know, has pointed out that it's very easy to get
into classloader hell for projects that define their own classloaders
(which apparently is often necessary), so it's not all a bed of roses."

I've seen custom classloaders (but never created one...so I find fault
with the "often necessary"), and in fact I e-mailed the author, yet
Vanier seems to think you might use a library with a custom classloader
(but I'd think you'd know if you're using a classloader to load classes
from a URL or ZIP file) and get caught in "DLL Hell" but that seems a
weak rationalization. I just haven't seen Java "DLL hell" like I did
with C++.

I'm puzzled, I've not heard much antipathy or hostility about the Java
class loading mechanism creating a Java "DLL Hell" like C++. I think
the author is taking some second-hand mis-information, but in a
discussion with a colleague, I couldn't convince otherwise. I find
dis-information a travesty, so trying to clear this point. Any
thoughts, experiences?

Thanks for your thoughts!

Will Gilreath