Java Is Underhyped • Hacker News Board

Re: Java Is Underhyped

#31

Post by aprinsen » Fri, Apr 16, 2021, 2:49 AM UTC

I didn't care for Java when I learned with it in school, found it verbose.

Working with it as a dev, my opinion improved. A lot of the new FP inspired APIs make logic much terser, and the OOP stuff can make implementing certain architectural patterns very clean.

The other great thing about Java is that nearly every conceivable question has been answered, as far as day to day development. Not so for newer languages.

My biggest pain point with java is the type system. Like, you basically need to write or consume a library to work with tuples.

Re: Java Is Underhyped

#32

Post by baby » Fri, Apr 16, 2021, 2:49 AM UTC

yongjik wrote: post #29

eklavya wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am sorry, Go? That can’t be right. I even doubt it’s any more verbose than python or swift. You CAN make it verbose that’s for sure.

You can write verbose code in any language, but most other languages don't consider it normal to name a class LangDetectLanguageIdentifierUpdateProcessorFactory. (Random example from an open source framework.)

I just got some flashback reading that long string, and my heartbeat raised. The namespacing system is also a nightmare

Com.prout.shit.lol...

Re: Java Is Underhyped

#33

Post by baby » Fri, Apr 16, 2021, 2:51 AM UTC

LaserToy wrote: post #20

Java is not hyped because it is a tool. Like a microscope, it just does what it supposed to do. IMO, if you want to get a descent job in a large company working on backend systems, you want to learn: Java, C/C++ or recently Go. You will be able to build pretty much anything, from a micro service to self driving car. If you want to stick to startups, you can do well with anything else till it growth, experienced engin…

I always refused to work with C++/Java, and I managed to get a job with Rust at FAANG. If I can do it, you can do it :P

Re: Java Is Underhyped

#34

Post by Jaxkr » Fri, Apr 16, 2021, 2:51 AM UTC

api wrote: post #12

Java was heavily hyped back in the 1990s and 2000s. It's still a decent language and has a number of things to recommend it, but today we have things like Go and Rust. I think it really fell out of favor due to Oracle's litigious handling of it. As soon as Oracle bought it I remember people actually cancelling Java projects and changing languages. Another problem is how complex and verbose it got. Original late-90s J…

> I think it really fell out of favor due to Oracle's litigious handling of it.

Thanks for the info. Didn’t know this. I use AdoptOpenJDK and am grateful the free version is so fully featured.

I’d imagine back in the day Oracle Java reigned supreme and their licensing terms were a real concern.

Re: Java Is Underhyped

#35

Post by dcchambers » Fri, Apr 16, 2021, 2:52 AM UTC

I do think Java has a bad rep as a "dry, corporate, enterprise" language, but I think there is an ecosystem around Java that is pretty awesome and you can build incredible applications with Java if you want to.

Java has a branding problem. Java (and Oracle) missed the wave of the last 15 years when tech became "cool." If you were new to tech/programming and wanted to pick up a language, which of these three would you pick, based on the website?

- Java: https://www.java.com/en/

- Kotlin: https://kotlinlang.org/

- Scala: https://www.scala-lang.org/

Java just doesn't have the cool factor that other languages have. A little rebranding could go a long way to reinvigorating the language in the eyes of newcomers. And I say that because the author of this blog post is a newcomer. Experiened developers know that, despite the ugly Oracle branding, Java is a good language with a sophisticated ecosystem of tools surrounding it. He seems to be mostly enamored with the developer experience of IntelliJ + Java + Maven. And while it is great, that experience is possible with most programming languages.

Disclaimer: I haven't used Java since my early University classes 10+ years ago.

Re: Java Is Underhyped

#36

Post by koolba » Fri, Apr 16, 2021, 2:52 AM UTC

yongjik wrote: post #29

eklavya wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am sorry, Go? That can’t be right. I even doubt it’s any more verbose than python or swift. You CAN make it verbose that’s for sure.

You can write verbose code in any language, but most other languages don't consider it normal to name a class LangDetectLanguageIdentifierUpdateProcessorFactory. (Random example from an open source framework.)

But how else will your app automatically detect and inject its enterprise LangDetectLanguageIdentifierConfligurator at startup?

Re: Java Is Underhyped

#37

Post by baby » Fri, Apr 16, 2021, 2:52 AM UTC

oftenwrong wrote: post #14

ntw1103 wrote: post #4

While attneding university, Java made an appearance in 4 different classes, the first two clases students take are Java classes. One interesting thing to note, is that for these classes, none of the students were allowed to use any of the Java libraries, or external libraries, everything had to be built from scratch. So I didn't actually learn about using external libraries or Maven until later when I started develop…

Java is poor choice as a language for teaching programming. There are simply too many irrelevant bits that will get in the way of learning.

Schools use it because it used to be the best way to get a job. Not anymore.

Re: Java Is Underhyped

#38

Post by api » Fri, Apr 16, 2021, 2:53 AM UTC

Jaxkr wrote: post #34

api wrote: post #12

Java was heavily hyped back in the 1990s and 2000s. It's still a decent language and has a number of things to recommend it, but today we have things like Go and Rust. I think it really fell out of favor due to Oracle's litigious handling of it. As soon as Oracle bought it I remember people actually cancelling Java projects and changing languages. Another problem is how complex and verbose it got. Original late-90s J…

> I think it really fell out of favor due to Oracle's litigious handling of it. Thanks for the info. Didn’t know this. I use AdoptOpenJDK and am grateful the free version is so fully featured. I’d imagine back in the day Oracle Java reigned supreme and their licensing terms were a real concern.

I have heard about Java quite a bit more ever since Oracle lost against Google at the Supreme Court. I don't think that's a coincidence.

Re: Java Is Underhyped

#39

Post by baby » Fri, Apr 16, 2021, 2:53 AM UTC

Jaxkr wrote: post #2

Thanks for the two upvotes so far! Please feel free to leave criticism of the article or my writing; I'm trying to strengthen my composition muscle.

You def. are doing well with both title and content, controversial stuff always has an audience.

I would just recommend learning another programming language :)

Re: Java Is Underhyped

#40

Post by eklavya » Fri, Apr 16, 2021, 2:54 AM UTC

nemothekid wrote: post #19

eklavya wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am sorry, Go? That can’t be right. I even doubt it’s any more verbose than python or swift. You CAN make it verbose that’s for sure.

> You CAN make it verbose that’s for sure. No true scotsman? Even if you want to argue that Java CAN be made more terse, the vast majority of Java that exists today is incredibly verbose. Even running a Java program is verbose. Java is the only language I've used where it's more common to have a shell script that starts your Java program than just running ./helloworld. And yes, Go is less verbose than Java. Go might…

We should keep in mind the kind of features, performance, observability the jvm can provide, compare that with the other runtimes and then see if the script to execute is too much :)