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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

#151

Post by xxs »

filoeleven wrote: post #143

The “keep readability in mind” tip exposes more Java/OOP icebergs. var date = LocalDate.parse("2019-08-13"); var dayOfWeek = date.getDayOfWeek(); var dayOfMonth = date.getDayOfMonth(); > The first one is pretty intuitive, the parse method returns a LocalDate object. However, for the next two, you should be a little bit more familiar with the API: dayOfWeek returns a java.time.DayOfWeek, while dayOfMonth simply return…

>Why does DayOfWeek have a class instead...

B/c in most of the world, the 1st day of the week is Monday, unlike the US where it happens to be Sunday. Having it enum is a pretty decent choice.

Re: New language features since Java 8 to 17

#152

Post by pjmlp »

hota_mazi wrote: post #100
hocuspocus wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Interestingly, I have the exact opposite opinion. Scala has been declining steadily for a decade now, and Scala 3 is going to precipitate this state of affairs by splitting the shrinking community even further. Kotlin, on the other hand, has done nothing but grow for the past five years, no doubt helped by Google's formidable support for it. I just took a quick look at one of its Slack channels, "getting-started", an…

Dominant outside Android? Keep dreaming, where is the KVM implementation by JetBrains?

Yeah right they had to reboot it.

Re: New language features since Java 8 to 17

#153

Post by cyberbanjo »

weatherlight wrote: post #117
dukeyukey wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with everything here except the "should stop being taught as the defacto language in computer science curriculums". Realitically, a CS curriculum needs to at least vaguely prep a student for life in the industry, and Java is not only massively popular, but is also a great way of showing how OO is used in practice i.e. kinda badly. No point teaching everyone about beautifully architected Smalltalk programs jus…

teach javascript, ruby, rust, go, kotlin....scheme. literally anything else.

I think a well rounded course would touch all the popular paradigms, and logic.

Re: New language features since Java 8 to 17

#154

Post by grishka »

BMorearty wrote: post #137
grishka wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But reading terse code requires a lot more prior knowledge, which you might not have. You learn to recognize patterns in the boilerplate and just glance over it, taking no additional time.

It definitely does not take “no” additional time to read verbose boilerplate code. As for prior knowledge, that argument doesn’t fly. A lot of the verboseness of Java could be addressed VERY easily with clear syntax that doesn’t require a lot more prior knowledge. An example is getters and setters, which are very easy to understand in languages that have built-in support for concise syntax but Java has somehow ignore…

Heh, getters and setters. An unpopular opinion, but imo you don't need them most of the time. Usually, a getter just returns a field and a setter just assigns it. If that's the case, and unless you're writing a public API of a library, just make the field public. Make it public final if it's read-only.

The difference between arrays and ArrayList is simple: an array has a constant size known at the time of allocation.

Re: New language features since Java 8 to 17

#155

Post by xxs »

vips7L wrote: post #148
xxs wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A friendly advice: dont be afraid to use public final immutable fields and omit the getters (and setters since you cant have them w/ finals).

Probably should just use records and get all that for free.

JulianMorrison uses java8, no 'record' there. Not everything fits being a record, either way. The advice is sound for pretty much any class and development, use final fields in the c-tor; make them public if you have to, and dont bother w/ getters.

Re: New language features since Java 8 to 17

#156

Post by pron »

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.

The cause and effect are quite right, though. The reason Kotlin was designed in 2009-2010 was because Java became stagnant, not by choice, but due to Sun's demise. After the acquisition and an adjustment period, Oracle gradually increased investment, and the evolution pace got back to it's "normal" course. So Java's "revival" and Kotlin's existence are, indeed, related, but one did not cause the other; rather, they both have a common cause.

Re: New language features since Java 8 to 17

#157

Post by weatherlight »

brundolf wrote: post #98
weatherlight wrote: post #95

Java sucks, and should stop being taught as the defacto language in computer science curriculums. It's extremely busy and verbose. There are better OO languages out there, if the point is to teach OO. (I'm ready for this post to get downvoted into oblivion)

Counterpoint: it's become a fairly multi-paradigm language at this point, and a multi-paradigm language is exactly what should be the defacto language in curriculums Whether or not Java is the best one for this purpose is up for debate, but I think it's no longer a bad one

Is it though? just because it has lambdas, does that make it functional?

Re: New language features since Java 8 to 17

#158

Post by edoloughlin »

grishka wrote: post #131
BMorearty wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being verbose is one of the biggest negatives a programming language can have. When you’re working on a team with other programmers and reading someone else’s code, verbose code takes much longer to read and grok because you have more boilerplate code to read.

But reading terse code requires a lot more prior knowledge, which you might not have. You learn to recognize patterns in the boilerplate and just glance over it, taking no additional time.

I think I could make the same argument for terse code.

Re: New language features since Java 8 to 17

#159

Post by cyberbanjo »

pharmakom wrote: post #102

Glad to see Java improve, but I still would like to see more ML features: - ~Exhaustive pattern matching~ it’s here! - Algebraic data types - Tail call optimisation - Do notation - Operator overload Why not use another language? Well, the name “Java” guarantees buy-in at this point. Maybe it will eventually be a Trojan horse for ML :)

What would do notation add to Java?

Re: New language features since Java 8 to 17

#160

Post by pron »

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…

Thank god for that, because those feature are either horrible on their own or superseded by better ones. You're getting a car and complaining for not getting faster horses. The features Java has adopted -- specifically, algebraic data types and pattern-matching -- will lead to better development practices, rather than making it easier to work with inferior ones.
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