Java 7 is now available

Having said that, GPL in theory ensures users and even people making derivatives of Java are protected from patent action by Oracle.

For whatever reason, whether it is merit or culture, Java programmers tend to write horrible code. I'm sure there's some nice Java code out there, that is not 20 times longer than it should be. But I have not yet seen evidence, even though I've been searching for it for a while.

Wrong. I would not say that, because I do it. I am saying that it is vastly more difficult than it needs to be to write good code in Java because it is insufficiently expressive.

I will say that I am suspicious of the ability to write good code of people to whom Java is not a poor development choice, because I suspect brain damage, but a decent programmer can write fine Java. It just sucks to do it.

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>> You are generalizing and that makes you sound like and troll even though I know that is not your intention.

I am doing no such thing. You are misunderstanding me, but it's pretty clear from the upvotes that you're the only one.

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>> I personally have never really had an issue with Java so I don't really understand the hate.

It is likely because you think in Blub. Read pg's article regarding Blub, Beating the Averages:

http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html

He makes the contention that Lisp is at the apex of the pyramid of software development tools. I disagree, for a number of reasons, but the contention of the article is correct at its core: once you have the perspective of a decent set of other tools, you realize that regardless of your tools of choice, Blub languages rank very low on the scale of expressivity--and thus, in power and ease-of-use. (And everyone should learn Lisp, anyway. Even if they don't write code in it. I think in Lisp when writing Java, and aside from Java's miserable boilerplate, my Lisp-in-Java is better than your average Java programmer's Java-in-Java.)

And I would submit that Java is one of the most Blub languages in common use. You have no basis for understanding why others would have an issue, because you are looking up the continuum without insight into what is above.

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>> Yes, there are sucky frameworks out there but you do know that you don't have to use them?

Meaningless statement. At my current employer, we are forced to use a legacy servlet infrastructure, but my own Java (and Scala) code uses Play! and other frameworks and libraries that at least attempt, if not always successfully, to drag Java reluctantly into some semblance of modernity.

Writing Java still sucks.

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>> Either I'm writing really simple code that Java never gets in the way, Java is not really a problem, or I'm a super programmer.

Or you are insufficiently experienced with better tools to be able to reliably determine whether it is done better elsewhere. One who does not know any better may be happy with Blub, but one who has used better is not. This seems eminently straightforward.

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>> And I write similar code in Objective-C, C++/C, JavaScript and even had to write a lot of code in VBA.

I'm beginning to see your problem. With the exception of JavaScript, you do work in Blub. And I'd bet that you write Blub in JavaScript, too, instead of JavaScript in JavaScript.

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>> Every language has its own nuances, you just find the best way to work with them, ignore the junk, and adapt. Which is why I really don't get where all this hate is coming from.

Nonsense and worse words. The best way to "adapt to Java" is to download a Scala compiler. Spend a few weeks using the JVM with something modern like Scala or Clojure and you will get where the antipathy towards Java comes from.

Java commits the ultimate sin a programming language can commit: it wastes my time. It is a language designed by committee that does nothing excellently. Its successors on its own platform do not commit the same sin and I am more productive for it--they are better for it.

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>> You never hear this for C++ and it can also be a pain in the ass

This is blatantly untrue, in my own experience. I can rant on about C++ quite successfully and at great length, because C++ has its own share of problems. Where it differs is in much, much greater expressivity--that C++ is capable of supporting Boost is a perfect example of this expressivity. It is by no means perfect, but it is certainly a smaller problem than Java.

And unlike Java 7, C++0x actually fixes (most of--templated lambdas are unavailable for what I consider fairly stupid reasons) the problems that. Oracle decided to push anything useful out until Java 8, and I'm skeptical it'll actually keep the promise of "next year."

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>> Is almost like it is cool to hate on Java.

You lack the breadth of experience to make this claim.

Specific to (A), that is regarding the JDK (as opposed to the JRE). As mentioned elsewhere, you can't redistribute tools.jar, and I think the compiler itself is a problem too.

BTW, this issue with emoticons and parenthesis was also subject of an XKCD comic: http://www.xkcd.com/541/