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Java Is Underhyped

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Re: Java Is Underhyped

#511

Post by vikingcaffiene »

There is no greater sin than to say something positive about Java on the orange site...

IMO Java and C# and other compiled languages have the opposite problem with languages like python and JavaScript (I love all these languages btw). It’s easy to get up and running quickly with the latter. It’s not until your project has grown in complexity when the formers value becomes apparent. This is similar to mongodb vs say, Postgres.

Also modern Java has picked up a lot of the better ideas from Kotlin and Scala. I still prefer Kotlin but I think a lot of criticism I read is referring to older versions of Java.

Re: Java Is Underhyped

#512

Post by slver »

wing-_-nuts wrote: post #503
slver wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The amount of vitriol Java receives in the game development space is rather strong. Java is a language with mandatory GC, tiny objects scattered around the heap (poor locality), and no value types or low-level memory access. This makes it very poor for games (you know, other very basic ones). But they're rapidly addressing these concerns.

>But they're rapidly addressing these concerns. Expand?

Project Panama (Foreign Memory Access):

https://medium.com/@youngty1997/jdk-14-foreign-memory-access...

Project Valhalla (Inline Classes aka Value Types):

https://dzone.com/articles/project-valhalla-fast-and-furious...

The links I picked are a bit random but they'll get you going with the basics.

Re: Java Is Underhyped

#513

Post by the_gipsy »

oblio wrote: post #491
the_gipsy wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm talking about a maven project I have to use sometimes at work. Let me walk you through all the shit I had to do: - Install and set the right java version system-wide - Copy some config files for the project system-wide (granted, this is not java specific, but still) - Click in some IDE menu to enable some build settings - Click in some IDE menu to install some "Lombok" plugin - Click in some IDE menu to select th…

I've interacted to a ton of Java projects. And with a ton of various other commercial and Open Source projects. In my experience (sample size of hundreds of projects), Maven projects are >, on average, easier to build and manage than most other languages. The repo structure is standardized, the build cycle is standardized, the built packages are always in the same place, etc. The Java installation is a 1-time think.…

Well Java is arguably one of the most IDE-reliant mainstream languages. It's completely unusable and unergonomic without the myriad of constant code generation and fixing as you write.

Treating the IDE like a separate problem is not realistic with java.

With e.g. Rust, I can use vim, vscode, whatever floats your boat.

> no idea why you'd have to configure "getting the actual logs"?

Some genius java logging library, I can only guess.

Re: Java Is Underhyped

#514

Post by strictfp »

jiriknesl wrote: post #195

I think, there are three things in this one. JVM, Java itself and how it is used. JVM is great. I think it gets a lot of love (in comparison with .NET Core which is IMHO as good as JVM). In this one, you see JVM everywhere except desktop apps. Then, there's Java itself. As a language, it really isn't as modern and doesn't provide much what isn't already available in C#, Scala, Kotlin, or even PHP or TypeScript. And i…

I left Java due to the culture.

I actually think the core language is great. And under Suns management Java was largely what golang is today; it was the pragmatic choice and it put the focus back onto writing code and away from complicated language features.

Then IBM stepped in with JEE, and it completely transformed Java into a language for bureaucrats and over-complicators. JEEs ethos was that the programmer is stupid and that the framework saves the programmer from their own stupidity. Not the greatest of ideas if you ask me.

Sane people jumped to newer languages. I tried to stick around and argue against bureaucracy, but in the end I realized the pointlessness of it all.

Now I'm ironically back with c++, but still the community is much purer and focusing much more on actual coding than snake oil.

Still write Java on my spare time and love it for it's relative ease of use, speed, and clarity. Not the most portable, ironically, but my language of choice for prototyping.

Java still has some true high quality libraries in it. I'm yet to find a good replacement for Doug Leas concurrency libraries in other languages. And the containers are great. And despite all the flak it gets, I actually think Swing is really good for whipping up a simple UI.

Re: Java Is Underhyped

#515

Post by spacemanmatt »

ascagnel_ wrote: post #436
spacemanmatt wrote: post #423

Perhaps Java isn't the most popular tool in the shed but its LTS story is unstoppable. I rank Java with Apple/Microsoft, in terms of respecting developers' investments in their APIs.

I think it's interesting that you're lumping Apple in there. Their iOS stuff has been fairly stable, but they've been fairly aggressive in chopping off support for legacy tech (32-bit apps was a big one, especially in the macOS world).

I have followed Apple architecture since the 128k Mac and the Lisa. They have studiously avoided breaking all apps at the same time. To wit, the 68k to Intel migration for many was recompiling with Xcode, and some code review per Apple guidelines. They actually went to great lengths to give you tools to ensure your migration went as smoothly as possible, where the OS interface was concerned. ARM: Lather, rinse, repeat, or not, if you are satisfied with emulated performance.

Re: Java Is Underhyped

#516

Post by tmccrary55 »

ZephyrBlu wrote: post #242
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it's true popularity in tech is not necessarily related to quality. Trending does have an impact. But by experience, having a killer feature, and a good adoption story usually does much more. E.G: - PHP: easy to make web page in 2001 - JS: monopoly on the client side web - Go: simple concurrency and binary production - Rust: borrow checker - Python: "yes, you can do that too. Also in 2 lines" Etc.

- Ruby: "yes, you can do that 5 different ways in 1 line"

Ruby: Buggy async io for 20 years

Re: Java Is Underhyped

#517

Post by tmccrary55 »

V-2 wrote: post #406
jiggawatts wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience with C# is similar. It was always designed to be a Java clone, and Microsoft is well-known for their backwards compatibility. I once wrote an application in 2005 that kept running with unmodified source code up until 2017 in production across multiple operating system upgrades, database upgrades, and a transition from 32-bit to 64-bit runtimes.

"[C#] was always designed to be a Java clone" "Initially" would be somewhat closer to the truth than "always".

It's still pretty damn similar and they continually add new features to match the other, keeping up with the joneses.

Re: Java Is Underhyped

#518

Post by slt2021 »

there are couple real reasons why managers/executives should choose Java over the other language:

1. it is battle tested, stable, and its strong and weak sides have been pretty much studies and internalized by developers

2. Java devs are like sand on the beach. They can be found everywhere at a cheap price. Develop something, then slowly outsource/offshore dev to cut costs and continue milking sales contracts.

Re: Java Is Underhyped

#519

Post by cartoonfoxes »

2ion wrote: post #336
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #119

For my use cases, Java has all the wrong compromises: - not high level enough to compete with Python/Ruby/JS/PHP, etc - not low level enough to compete with Rust/D/Nim/Zig - not specialized enough to compete with Erlang/R/Go/Julia - not opinionated enough to compete with Lisp/Haskell So why use Java ? It's good, it's fast, it's productive, it's well supported, battle tested and documented for decades with a huge pool…

My main issue is that people writing Java (or for the JVM) because of their backgrounds (app-level code printers) almost completely disregard how that code works on the JVM, at scale, in a highly responsive and/or high throughput service. You can't just use a big, "safe bet" framework like spring, which taints EVERYTHING in that project, write a simple REST API and then do heavy work "in the background" without side…

>"Running Java" requires detailed system engineering / ops expertise specific to how the JVM works and can be tuned

> almost completely disregard how that code works on the JVM

As an occasional clueless programmer, I've had occasion to touch systems written in Java. Could you point me at some resources?

Re: Java Is Underhyped

#520

Post by spacemanmatt »

Retric wrote: post #482
Pet_Ant wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there's almost always some JS expertise built into the organization. That is usually part of the front-end team that don't do the backend SQL work. Tho team that would get assigned the work for a backend greenfield would be versed in Java.

It’s surprisingly rare for things to split like that. At most companies people will be more skilled at front end or back end work, but it’s rarely a clean separation with front end vs back end teams. That’s an outgrowth of most projects being quite small. Paying a team or 20+ people to work on one thing is freaking expensive to the point where it needs major benefit or huge company to be worth it. On the other hand m…

> It’s surprisingly rare for things to split like that.

THIS. The product is blended and so must the teams be. Among all the full-stack developers I've worked with, the "frontend" or "backend" designators tended to describe preference or strength, rather than limitation.

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