Unpopular opinion: Java is a Flash of the backend.
Bashing Java is unpopular?
I can see how comparing server-side Java to Flash would be an unpopular opinion (since it doesn't make any sense at all).
Should I Learn Java in 2018
41–50 of 165 posts
Re: Should I Learn Java in 2018
#42Author says Java was relatively new in 2007 although introduced in 1995... I’m not sure what is meant.
Java is many things: the language? The vm? The ecosystem?
I keep hearing that Java is fast, and indeed hotspot is but every system I encounter that’s written in Java is sluggish.
I keep hearing that Java lost its abstractwidgetfactoryfactoryfactory fetish, and I think it’s improved in the last 15 years, but it’s still horrible.
My view:The language is meh; acceptable syntax, reasonable performance. The ecosystem is bleh - only if you really love bureaucracy.
Re: Should I Learn Java in 2018
#43Learn Kotlin! It's a lot of fun. And gradle is a nice build system.
Historically, Gradle is a Java build system, isn't it?
Re: Should I Learn Java in 2018
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oddly enough most of the startups around where I am at have been based on Rails. Some people use Node as well. That’s about as $hype_of_the_year as it gets here.
I think Rails/NodeJS are the most popular choices for startups everywhere in the world. Both technologies are made for lean development.
Node.js is 9 years old and is also very stable with a large ecosystem. It's far from "hype train" in 2018 and it's more the mature technology - though it's still moving fast forward with new tools and paradigms it's very stable.
Re: Should I Learn Java in 2018
#45One annoyance with Java(and Kotlin too) is that it's pretty much the only language left that you really ought to use a specialized IDE with while pretty much every other language(including C#) you can get adequate support in VS Code or Emacs.
I think its the other way, there are only a few languages with as superb IDE support as Java. AFAIK its just C++, Java and C#.
You can get shitty support with just syntax coloring for anything and anywhere of course.
Re: Should I Learn Java in 2018
#46I wrote this in 2014 and think it's still reasonably relevant: https://mcconnellsoftware.github.io/java-golden-handcuffs/
Re: Should I Learn Java in 2018
#47I never got the "Should I learn X" posts. The answer is yes to all the "Should I learn X" questions so it's very hard to have a discussion. Learning another language is _significantly_ easier than learning the first one or two - not to the point of being a master but to the point of being competent. Should I learn OCaml? Yes, you learn from knowing a functional language and Scala (combines functional and OOP well) an…
You're taking the question very literally. Implicit in it is should I learn Java over X given I'm constrained by time and opportunity cost. Yes, we'd love to learn all the things given infinite resources.
It's implicit - but my criticism here is mostly that once you know one development stack learning others is significantly easier.
Learning Java is something that a backend developer can likely do in a week - and so is learning Node.js after knowing Java.
Re: Should I Learn Java in 2018
#48I never got the "Should I learn X" posts. The answer is yes to all the "Should I learn X" questions so it's very hard to have a discussion. Learning another language is _significantly_ easier than learning the first one or two - not to the point of being a master but to the point of being competent. Should I learn OCaml? Yes, you learn from knowing a functional language and Scala (combines functional and OOP well) an…
Well, yes and no.
Sure, it would be best if you learn all of them, but that's just impossible and not terribly useful.
What "Should I learn X" is implicitly "Given limited lifespan, will learning X, pay off for me".
Both in the literal sense like a well payed job and in the sense of making you a better programmer, which kinda depends on your previous experiences (e.g. learning Lisp dialect is kinda worthless, if you already know another Lisp dialect, learning C# pays less if you already know Java and F#).
Re: Should I Learn Java in 2018
#49I was at the tail end of the Java-first code teaching approach - the Stanford open courseware I was following in 2013 was largely built on top of Java. Stanford switched those courses to Javascript a couple of years later.
Java has definite advantages over its scripting cousins when it comes to learning the OOP paradigm, program patterns/anti-patterns and typing. You can't really get away with not knowing any of it in Java (as opposed to Python), but the language is still fairly newbie-friendly (as opposed to C++). Additionally, Java 8 is a fairly decent introduction to functional programming for people who've never worked with it before.
All that said, right now I wouldn't start a new codebase in Java unless I really, really had to. Learn your fundamentals through Java, then get comfortable in something else and code your projects in that instead.
Re: Should I Learn Java in 2018
#50> Concern 5: Java is too slow/consumes too much memory It's sad that this is still a thing. Compared to more trendy languages like Python and Javascript, Java is very light on memory. JS is known for being fairly fast and "light", but its actually 5-10x slower than Java and uses 5-10X more memory. And the whole "lightness" of it is a lie. Javascript's run-time is probably bigger and more complex than the JVM. Java us…
Also, https://github.com/cxxr/better-java with recommendations for learning how to write modern Java.
Nice! I think it may be slightly out of date though. For example, you don't need Tuples library if you use Apache commons because it has Tuple support. Also, Javaslang has been renamed Vavr. Still a solid article though