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IT Runs on Java 8

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Re: IT Runs on Java 8

#31

Post by gambler »

inertiatic wrote: post #15

It's a bit disturbing how much people in this industry are focused on tooling. It's a biproduct IMO of working on boring problems or supporting morally ambiguous corps. That thing that you need to keep yourself busy and keep going in the rat race.

Tooling is great for job security. You can be absolutely shit at writing code and designing systems, yet make yourself indispensable because you know Framework X and most other people don't. All it takes is time to memorize trivia of the framework and a bit of trial-and-error to figure out how to work around framework's pitfalls.

Unfortunately, this creates a whole host of long-term issues. For example, it create the situation where complex tools have their fervent advocates, while simple tools do not (because they don't provide job security). It also create an incentive to start a sort of complexity Ponzi scheme: you add tools to manage tools to manage other tools and so on. Each new layer reinforces the job security of people working on the previous one.

It's important to keep in mind that stuff like Java 8 and C are also tools, susceptible to the same problem.

Re: IT Runs on Java 8

#32

Post by [deleted] »

villgax wrote: post #10

Dunno what hole she is in but Excel, Sharepoint are all things that new age companies don't work on & rather is the tool of choice for all things by legacy ones still chugging along.

[deleted]

Re: IT Runs on Java 8

#34

Post by username223 »

inertiatic wrote: post #15

It's a bit disturbing how much people in this industry are focused on tooling. It's a biproduct IMO of working on boring problems or supporting morally ambiguous corps. That thing that you need to keep yourself busy and keep going in the rat race.

I think the focus on tooling is more because: (1) developers understand it, since they use it full-time; (2) they're motivated to write it, since it will make their life easier. Understanding business needs takes work, and writing software you will never use is uninspiring.

Re: IT Runs on Java 8

#35

Post by 4ndrewl »

villgax wrote: post #10

Dunno what hole she is in but Excel, Sharepoint are all things that new age companies don't work on & rather is the tool of choice for all things by legacy ones still chugging along.

Dunno what hole she is in but Excel, Sharepoint are all things that small companies struggling to make a profit don't work on & rather is the tool of choice for all things by hugely profitable organisations that will pick the bones of those smaller companies in a few years time

Re: IT Runs on Java 8

#36

Post by sanxiyn »

nileshk wrote: post #29

At work, we have some customers who want to use WebLogic and Websphere, and last time I checked those don't have versions that support anything beyond Java 8. I still use Java 8 even on personal projects. I'm migrating those to Kotlin, so I'm at least not held back with regard to programming language features. I could upgrade those to Java 11 (or 12), just haven't prioritized taking the time to do that over other tas…

I disagree. Addition of generics in Java 5 was bigger.

Re: IT Runs on Java 8

#37

Post by ekianjo »

chrisseaton wrote: post #27
villgax wrote: post #10

Dunno what hole she is in but Excel, Sharepoint are all things that new age companies don't work on & rather is the tool of choice for all things by legacy ones still chugging along.

You may be very surprised how much very serious stuff runs in and is still being written on top of Excel. Trading models dealing with tens of millions of dollars a day for example.

Yup, can confirm, Excel is everywhere. And it's even applied where it's not appropriate (VBA macros runnings on way too large datasets for hours and hours, completely inefficiently).

Re: IT Runs on Java 8

#38

Post by o_p »

villgax wrote: post #10

Dunno what hole she is in but Excel, Sharepoint are all things that new age companies don't work on & rather is the tool of choice for all things by legacy ones still chugging along.

And what would be the future replacement of Excel? Specially for non-tech people.

Re: IT Runs on Java 8

#39

Post by ben_jones »

inertiatic wrote: post #15

It's a bit disturbing how much people in this industry are focused on tooling. It's a biproduct IMO of working on boring problems or supporting morally ambiguous corps. That thing that you need to keep yourself busy and keep going in the rat race.

It's also a product of ambitious orgs. One way to out compete a competitor with more resources is to have better development, ops, and release tooling. It's not a silver bullet but it can make a large positive impact when done properly.

Re: IT Runs on Java 8

#40

Post by diminish »

Maybe it's wrong to see startup tech as the cutting edge part of the IT.

IT maybe just another industry similar to bio or agriculture and not part of the startup tech.

Maybe IT crowd should simply avoid sharing common forums like HN with startup and SV people.

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