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New language features since Java 8 to 17

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Re: New language features since Java 8 to 17

#61

Post by jmfldn »

jpgvm wrote: post #56
jmfldn wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm yes I guess you might be right given Android. It's a shame in a way that Kotlin was invented as Scala could have filled the niche too imho but that ship has sailed. It's too similar to both Java and Scala and doesn't really bring anything new to the table. Is that fair or does it have a great USP other than massive Google backing?

I don't think Scala ever could have filled that niche, I say this as someone that wanted Scala to be successful. The truth of it is that Kotlin is incredibly easy to learn, even for non-Java devs. It is definitely focused on a very low barrier to entry. I don't think this was an original goal but it's become a significant focus of the language especially after being selected to be the next platform language for Andro…

I hear this a lot about Scala, and I am a Scala dev so maybe I'm biased, but I don't get the difficulty angle particularly. I'm in no way exceptional as a programmer or IQ-wise but I picked up Scala easily as part of my first job. The difficulty thing doesn't compute to me but it could just be that I'm well-suited to the language. It works beautifully as a better Java if that's how you wish to use it. Granted, it might be hard if you start with a "pure FP" codebase but most devs don't struggle picking things up on most code bases even as juniors.

The point about tooling and developer experience I'll concede. It has been at times patchy in Scala in the past but it's pretty good these days.

As I say, I have no hate for Kotlin, and I'll possibly use it one day being a JVM developer familiar with Java as well, I just find it unfortunate that a language which is so similar to the languages it's influenced by was invented.

Re: New language features since Java 8 to 17

#62

Post by leroman »

cageface wrote: post #2

Unfortunately it looks like Java is going to evolve enough to take the wind out of the sails of Kotlin and Scala for most dev shops. I guess the positive take is that those improvements might not have happened without the efforts to develop better JVM languages.

Scala still has a better design at its base, which is missing from Java and I don’t see how Java can retro-fit it into the language, Immutability is a big part of being functional and doing safe multi-threading stuff, java is doing all the good syntactic stuff (case class, switches with guards etc) but without immutability it’s a far cry from the same facility in Scala land. Having said that, this trend is welcome for every time I have to write Java and makes it feel more natural to me as an old time Scala developer.

Re: New language features since Java 8 to 17

#63

Post by bestinterest »

66fm472tjy7 wrote: post #59
cageface wrote: post #2

Unfortunately it looks like Java is going to evolve enough to take the wind out of the sails of Kotlin and Scala for most dev shops. I guess the positive take is that those improvements might not have happened without the efforts to develop better JVM languages.

I don't think this is going to happen with Brian Goetz as language architect. He refuses to add many features that would address everyday pain points such as: * null safe navigation operator * properties * mutable records * a way to ignore checked exceptions (or at least having the stream API take functional interfaces that can throw exceptions) * adding functional methods like .filter()/.map() directly to collection…

Is that true though? nullability is a area I've heard /u/pron mention may be tackled in the future, mutable records seem like they will be tackled with the 'withers' concept in the future. Checked exceptions + changing the sugar of .stream().map I don't see ever changing. Properties I am unsure of.

Re: New language features since Java 8 to 17

#64

Post by teh_klev »

sushsjsuauahab wrote: post #55
teh_klev wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Introduced in Java 10: https://advancedweb.hu/new-language-features-since-java-8-to...

Wow, my memory failed me! I could have sworn it was 9.

You can't remember everything :)

I've been a C# developer since v1 and I couldn't tell you specifically what version a feature appeared in. It's all a bit of a blur.

Re: New language features since Java 8 to 17

#65

Post by recursive »

xxs wrote: post #42
recursive wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other than sign-extension on right shift, I can't think of a bitwise operator that has a different implementation between signed/unsigned. What scenarios are you thinking of?

reading and processing bytes mostly. Many people get confused due to the need of bitwise and, yet even if that would be removed I can't quite see the intrinsic benefits, given how difficult would be having another primitive type.

So, when processing bytes, can you name an operation where the existence of an unsigned type would even make a difference? I'm still not seeing it.

Re: New language features since Java 8 to 17

#66

Post by cogman10 »

bestinterest wrote: post #63
66fm472tjy7 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this is going to happen with Brian Goetz as language architect. He refuses to add many features that would address everyday pain points such as: * null safe navigation operator * properties * mutable records * a way to ignore checked exceptions (or at least having the stream API take functional interfaces that can throw exceptions) * adding functional methods like .filter()/.map() directly to collection…

Is that true though? nullability is a area I've heard /u/pron mention may be tackled in the future, mutable records seem like they will be tackled with the 'withers' concept in the future. Checked exceptions + changing the sugar of .stream().map I don't see ever changing. Properties I am unsure of.

AFAIK, the fate of nullability is tied pretty directly to Valhalla. It's constantly being brought up there.

Re: New language features since Java 8 to 17

#67

Post by tunesmith »

hocuspocus wrote: post #60
cageface wrote: post #2

Unfortunately it looks like Java is going to evolve enough to take the wind out of the sails of Kotlin and Scala for most dev shops. I guess the positive take is that those improvements might not have happened without the efforts to develop better JVM languages.

Scala is fine. People understood it's not really worth it as a "better Java". Companies that choose Scala in 2021 are using either big data frameworks (where Python bindings are the most common alternative to Scala, not Java), or functional ecosystems (Typelevel, Zio). Scala 3 has taken an interesting direction and to me it seems that Odersky wants to win Python developers over rather than Java shops using Spring. Ne…

Which is a bummer for folks that loves the cleanliness and power of "basic Scala" (pure functions, immutability) without wanting to get into deep FP theory (typelevel, zio). That has been a really nice pocket to be in for teams that have the discipline to not get clever with it. Same with teams wanting to integrate with Akka on scala.

Re: New language features since Java 8 to 17

#68

Post by tunesmith »

CuriousCosmic wrote: post #7
Waterluvian wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t follow why this is unfortunate?

A lot of people have migrated away from Java to better JVM languages. If Java actually keeps improving, there's a reasonable likelihood that people will stop migrating and those that have may come back to Java from these other langs. Long term this could lead to a loss of maintenance for tools and libraries for these languages which could kill them and leave those that migrated with a dead & decaying ecosystem. Of co…

Over the last short while I've seen Lightbend announce ceasing support for Play, others express that Slick is likely abandonware, and also seen my chosen Play authentication library, silhouette, get archived on github. All of this has impacted my favorite side project that I've been slowly plugging away on.

Silhouette is probably just because of one guy's schedule, but Play/Slick seems like after-effects of lightbend's layoffs many months ago, and while I don't know the cause of those it seems plausible it's because of the kind of thing you describe above.

Re: New language features since Java 8 to 17

#70

Post by jayd16 »

cutler wrote: post #36
jmfldn wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is great not unfortunate. If Java improves because of Scala and Kotlin then so much the better, this is how languages evolve. If it really does evolve to remove the need for a better Java then it would be nice if people switched away from Kotlin and back to it. Scala can then carry on cementing its niche as a powerful commercial FP language. No hate for Kotlin at all but it seems like in that world, there might…

Android will always be Kotlin-first. That's a pretty huge market.

Android used to be always Java first. It could change again.
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