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Ask HN: Why do big companies tend to only build with Java?

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21–30 of 57 posts

Re: Ask HN: Why do big companies tend to only build with Java?

#21
The success of rapid development is more a function of the team, than of the language used. It is wrong to blame Java for the failures of poor developer teams.

Java is stable, has plenty of libraries, lots of tools, is friendly to refactoring, testing, and it is not such a bad language. Just take a look at the tools developed in java by good teams (eclipse, apache, joss, spring and so on..)

Re: Ask HN: Why do big companies tend to only build with Java?

#22
post #15

Most of these answers don't seem to be written by anyone actually involved in "enterprise" development. Here are our simple reasons: * The JVM is fast. * The JVM can take proper advantage of multiple cores directly (no GIL). * The JVM is efficient compared to other runtimes. * Java is type-safe. * There's a library for everything , and libraries are generally well-documented, unit-tested, and provide stable releases…

Nah. Those are the reasons that an organization would like to list for using Java. But "kls" nailed it above. It's mainly inertia and labor availability at this point.

The reality is that most enterprise projects are generally so many layers of lasagna code that JVM performance is about 20 down on the list of things to blame for poor performance.

Re: Ask HN: Why do big companies tend to only build with Java?

#23
I have been doing Java for a long time, and while I personally prefer more modern languages I have found that if I have to load up and work on someone else's code, my life is much easier if it's in Java because the tooling (specifically refactoring support) is so good. So even if I inherit an old, awful, "big" codebase, I have a good chance of wrestling it into shape by pushing it around in Eclipse or IDEA, with some reasonable guarantees that I haven't broken anything along the way. So the fact that I'm not entirely doomed in this case (as I recently felt when I inherited 300k lines of very bad Python) is a good selling point.

So as a common-denominator for large codebases with average-quality developers it makes sense in the long term, although it's not terribly fun.

Re: Ask HN: Why do big companies tend to only build with Java?

#24
post #7

There are a plethora of reasons that the enterprise uses Java and many of them are really good reasons but the main reason now is inertia, so many enterprises and vendors are invested in Java that to divest of Java just does not have a good value proposition, given the fact that their has not been a major revolution in languages or run-times, no one has had the stomach to try to move off in a serious attempt. To unde…

> Getting out of the infrastructure game for the enterprise will be huge and may herald the end or Java's dominance.

No it won't, JVM usage will just shift to wherever the need for massively scalable systems goes. If that domain shifts from in-house enterprise development to SaaS companies like Salesforce, the JVM will still be a top contender for those kinds of projects, wherever they're housed.

Re: Ask HN: Why do big companies tend to only build with Java?

#25
Knowns. I think it's mostly because of the 'knowns'.

Removes some uncertainty around planning maintenance & operational costs. Java developers are plentiful and framework training/certification programs are out there for the 'feel goods'.

Also... turns out, .NET is adopted for the above reasons as well.

Re: Ask HN: Why do big companies tend to only build with Java?

#26
post #22
post #15

Most of these answers don't seem to be written by anyone actually involved in "enterprise" development. Here are our simple reasons: * The JVM is fast. * The JVM can take proper advantage of multiple cores directly (no GIL). * The JVM is efficient compared to other runtimes. * Java is type-safe. * There's a library for everything , and libraries are generally well-documented, unit-tested, and provide stable releases…

Nah. Those are the reasons that an organization would like to list for using Java. But "kls" nailed it above. It's mainly inertia and labor availability at this point. The reality is that most enterprise projects are generally so many layers of lasagna code that JVM performance is about 20 down on the list of things to blame for poor performance.

If anything, they are reasons that enterprises aren't in any kind of hurry to abandon Java.

Re: Ask HN: Why do big companies tend to only build with Java?

#27
post #10

Statically typed languages are favoured when you're working on a team with 40 other developers and you want the idiotic changes being made 5 desks over to break before they check in, not after you've pulled their changes. Autocomplete also makes life staggeringly easier, as do strong refactoring tools. Not having to deal with memory management is also a big plus. When you put those requirements together you end up wi…

On the other hand, maybe you wouldn't need 40 developers on the project if you weren't building it in Java...

Good developers can move fast in Java, bad developers will move slow and screw up, even in Ruby.

Re: Ask HN: Why do big companies tend to only build with Java?

#28
post #22
post #15

Most of these answers don't seem to be written by anyone actually involved in "enterprise" development. Here are our simple reasons: * The JVM is fast. * The JVM can take proper advantage of multiple cores directly (no GIL). * The JVM is efficient compared to other runtimes. * Java is type-safe. * There's a library for everything , and libraries are generally well-documented, unit-tested, and provide stable releases…

Nah. Those are the reasons that an organization would like to list for using Java. But "kls" nailed it above. It's mainly inertia and labor availability at this point. The reality is that most enterprise projects are generally so many layers of lasagna code that JVM performance is about 20 down on the list of things to blame for poor performance.

Nah. Those are the reasons that an organization would like to list for using Java. But "kls" nailed it above. It's mainly inertia and labor availability at this point.

... except those are the reasons our organization uses Java.

Unfortunately, it seems like this doesn't fit the narrative that some people want to have about the JVM and Java.

Re: Ask HN: Why do big companies tend to only build with Java?

#29
post #15

Most of these answers don't seem to be written by anyone actually involved in "enterprise" development. Here are our simple reasons: * The JVM is fast. * The JVM can take proper advantage of multiple cores directly (no GIL). * The JVM is efficient compared to other runtimes. * Java is type-safe. * There's a library for everything , and libraries are generally well-documented, unit-tested, and provide stable releases…

I'm excitedly curious about when this bullet point has come up as a selling point for the JVM in "enterprise" development:

* There are a number of alternative languages to choose from that can interoperate on the JVM (Scala, Clojure, JRuby, ...)

Re: Ask HN: Why do big companies tend to only build with Java?

#30
Besides the advantages listed by others, Java make it easy for a team of developers to code together, not just at the same time, also across timeline. After you leave, the next guy coming in to maintain your code has a much easier time to understand the code. Big companies value that a lot.
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