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Why we choose Java instead of a polyglot stack

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Re: Why we choose Java instead of a polyglot stack

#2
I work at HubSpot, and was among the initially skeptical from having had bad experiences in Java in the distant past and spent more time in Ruby in the years prior which I mostly enjoyed.

The Java ecosystem truly saved itself from its own enterprise madness. Libraries and frameworks today look nothing like they did in the past. I think that is somewhat due to language features (annotations, lambdas, etc) but also due to a cultural shift in what is valued.

One of the things I've appreciated more than I would have expected is by having a single back-end language we have very strong community of developers. There is no split among different factions. (I hear rumors of sharp divides between python and node camps at Uber, for example.) Even though technically we have a platform capable of running languages in many languages, the value of the community focused on a single back-end language toolchain is extremely valuable.

Re: Why we choose Java instead of a polyglot stack

#3
post #2

I work at HubSpot, and was among the initially skeptical from having had bad experiences in Java in the distant past and spent more time in Ruby in the years prior which I mostly enjoyed. The Java ecosystem truly saved itself from its own enterprise madness. Libraries and frameworks today look nothing like they did in the past. I think that is somewhat due to language features (annotations, lambdas, etc) but also due…

Yep. I've used a variety of different languages, and it always struck me as odd that Java was considered some uncool cumbersome language, and enterprise-y in some sort of bad way. It's not a dream to code in, but it is highly practical and in no way limits what you can do or makes anything particularly hard. I see now that I joined the Java party in better days.

Re: Why we choose Java instead of a polyglot stack

#5
If you're not picking the JVM in 2016 to build your core services and web applications then you're making a mistake that is going to cost you time and money either upfront in building things that already exist or later down the road when you start to need more performance and your RoR application isn't cutting it anymore.

Say what you will about Java the language (I agree it's not particularly "sexy") but the JVM is a performance beast. You can write Java or pick from one of several other languages that range across different paradigms from static functional to dynamic (current gen: Scala, Groovy, JRuby, Jython, next-gen: Kotlin, Ceylon). Integration is usually painless between these languages. It's also highly configurable and can be tuned to virtually any workload.

You get the huge benefit of a very mature and common shared infrastructure and tooling environment. Your operations team will thank you for solidifying on a single runtime environment.

Java is great. The whole ecosystem is really really solid in general and it's truly a pick what you want platform at this point. The JVM is magical for web applications and services.

Re: Why we choose Java instead of a polyglot stack

#6
post #2

I work at HubSpot, and was among the initially skeptical from having had bad experiences in Java in the distant past and spent more time in Ruby in the years prior which I mostly enjoyed. The Java ecosystem truly saved itself from its own enterprise madness. Libraries and frameworks today look nothing like they did in the past. I think that is somewhat due to language features (annotations, lambdas, etc) but also due…

Yep. I've used a variety of different languages, and it always struck me as odd that Java was considered some uncool cumbersome language, and enterprise-y in some sort of bad way. It's not a dream to code in, but it is highly practical and in no way limits what you can do or makes anything particularly hard. I see now that I joined the Java party in better days.

Interesting.

Last time I used it was when EJB, JSP and co. were "big". And it always felt like a struggle to get this strange overload of "design patterns" running. Maven and code generators did their fair share to add some "what is even happening"-moments to my experiences.

I just sticked to get things up and running fast with JavaScript and throw in some C if the performance suffers too much.

Re: Why we choose Java instead of a polyglot stack

#7
post #2

I work at HubSpot, and was among the initially skeptical from having had bad experiences in Java in the distant past and spent more time in Ruby in the years prior which I mostly enjoyed. The Java ecosystem truly saved itself from its own enterprise madness. Libraries and frameworks today look nothing like they did in the past. I think that is somewhat due to language features (annotations, lambdas, etc) but also due…

HubSpot doesn't have language wars, only IDE wars ;)

Re: Why we choose Java instead of a polyglot stack

#8
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. I've used a variety of different languages, and it always struck me as odd that Java was considered some uncool cumbersome language, and enterprise-y in some sort of bad way. It's not a dream to code in, but it is highly practical and in no way limits what you can do or makes anything particularly hard. I see now that I joined the Java party in better days.

Interesting. Last time I used it was when EJB, JSP and co. were "big". And it always felt like a struggle to get this strange overload of "design patterns" running. Maven and code generators did their fair share to add some "what is even happening"-moments to my experiences. I just sticked to get things up and running fast with JavaScript and throw in some C if the performance suffers too much.

What is "co."?

Re: Why we choose Java instead of a polyglot stack

#9
post #2

I work at HubSpot, and was among the initially skeptical from having had bad experiences in Java in the distant past and spent more time in Ruby in the years prior which I mostly enjoyed. The Java ecosystem truly saved itself from its own enterprise madness. Libraries and frameworks today look nothing like they did in the past. I think that is somewhat due to language features (annotations, lambdas, etc) but also due…

The blog post mentioned "modern java frameworks", can you specify which ones you're using?

Re: Why we choose Java instead of a polyglot stack

#10
post #8
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. Last time I used it was when EJB, JSP and co. were "big". And it always felt like a struggle to get this strange overload of "design patterns" running. Maven and code generators did their fair share to add some "what is even happening"-moments to my experiences. I just sticked to get things up and running fast with JavaScript and throw in some C if the performance suffers too much.

What is "co."?

as in "...and company"
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