If Java Is Dying, It Sure Looks Awfully Healthy • Hacker News Board

Re: If Java Is Dying, It Sure Looks Awfully Healthy

#321

Post by kllrnohj » Fri, Oct 11, 2013, 2:33 AM UTC

pjmlp wrote: post #144

kllrnohj wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google hasn't improved the language level beyond Java 6 grammar. That's because Oracle has been suing them over it. Dalvik hasn't changed in years thanks to that lawsuit. Google was steadily improving Dalvik right up until that lawsuit happened, then it came to a screeching halt. That's not a coincidence. And really, what Java 7 language level features were there that makes it problematic that Android still runs Ja…

> That's because Oracle has been suing them over it. ... Sun just did not sue them, because they lacked the money. James Gosling confirmed this. > And really, what Java 7 language level features were there that makes it problematic that Android still runs Java 6? The good stuff was dropped from 7 and pushed to 8. 7 is boring - Strings in switch - Try with resources - Multiple exceptions in catch - Simplified IO - Dia…

Simplified IO is a library feature, not a language feature, and Android has its own IO stuff anyway.

Diamond type inference is cute, but hardly important. You could do the same thing with a save macro in your IDE.

Try with resources is about the only thing in that list that would be actually useful in Android.

> Any Java library targeted for Java 7, even without the new language features, is also not usable in Android projects, because Dex cannot understand the new Java 7 bytecodes.

So target Java 6 if you're making a library. Which is what people do anyway, because not everyone has immediately jumped to 7.

And none of them will run on J2ME which Sun/Oracle never upgraded past 1.3 for Pete's sake. If not upgrading Java was worthy of a lawsuit, we should be class action'ing the hell out of Oracle for the crime against humanity that was J2ME.

BlackBerry was also 1.3 right up until the end.

Android right now is only using a version of Java that's ~1 year out of date. That's still a shitload better still than Sun ever managed to do on mobile.

> Google is a corporation like any other.

Cows go moo.

Saying irrelevant facts is fun! You're on to something here I think.

Re: If Java Is Dying, It Sure Looks Awfully Healthy

#322

Post by judk » Fri, Oct 11, 2013, 3:07 AM UTC

cageface wrote: post #88

acomjean wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think generally the libraries in Java help programmers use data structures that make the language seem faster (trees/hashes) . These structures exist in c++ but aren't as easy to use so aren't used as frequently. Those processors extensions will make mathy c++ code significantly faster. When I was on an ada project all the mathy code was written in c/c++ for speed. Pretty amazing the difference.

What? C++ comes with robust trees & hashes via the STL, along with a pretty extensive library of algorithms that work on all the STL containers. And, unlike Java, C++ lets you pack value objects contiguously in memory, which can be a massive performance win due to better cache behavior/no pointer chasing.

Why can't Java new() use a plank to allocate objects in an array, just like C++ new() can?

Re: If Java Is Dying, It Sure Looks Awfully Healthy

#323

Post by pgcsmd » Fri, Oct 11, 2013, 8:24 AM UTC

EpicEng wrote: post #90

zainny wrote: post #43

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Android yet. When you add in the Android factor, Java is probably still one of the most widely used programming languages today. It's funny the article straight away brings up the verbosity argument as well. You want to talk about verbosity - take a look at Objective-C and Cocoa (again, hugely popular today!)! Personally, I quite like Java.

Popular in terms of use, yes, but liked? I don't know, I doubt it. Android and iOS essentially force you to use Java or Objective-C respectively. I don't hate Java, but I don't like it either. It lacks quality of life features that other, similar languages have had for years. I can't stand writing code in it if I don't have to (and don't get me started on Objective-C...) From what I hear from others and read on a wee…

FWIW: I really like Java. C and Lisp would be the other languages I'm especially fond of.

Re: If Java Is Dying, It Sure Looks Awfully Healthy

#324

Post by James_Duval » Fri, Oct 11, 2013, 11:43 AM UTC

RivieraKid wrote: post #314

bad_user wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've got a parable in our country about a lazy bastard, that couldn't do anything out of laziness to the point of dying from hunger. One day a woman offers to help him, to give him shelter and food. To which the lazy man asks in response ... will you soak my bread? (sounds much better in Romanian) Fuck dude. You're a developer. If you want productivity, make shit happen.

wtf?

I think that they are saying that Scala is the proverbial bread being offered to you, and your concerns about productivity are akin to insisting that your bread be soaked so that it's easy to eat.

If that is what they're saying, I disagree with them.

Re: If Java Is Dying, It Sure Looks Awfully Healthy

#325

Post by Flenser » Fri, Oct 11, 2013, 12:40 PM UTC

jaggederest wrote: post #107

ww520 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So which hip languages are these "thought leaders" using now?

Python, Ruby, Javascript, JVM-hosted languages like Clojure, Scala, and newer languages still in development like Elixir, I'm sure I'm missing some. Haskell is perpetually 10 years ahead in programming research but sadly it functionally lacks support for day-to-day scripting tasks.

Indeed, when compare Java with Python, Ruby, Javascript using the tool that the OP used for showing that monthly commits to Java were stable for the last 7 years it shows how quickly they are catching up:

http://www.ohloh.net/languages/compare?l0=java&l1=javascript...

Although it looks like Ruby isn't growing as quickly as JavaScript and Python.

It will be interesting to see if perceptions change after JavaScript and Python overtake Java.

Re: If Java Is Dying, It Sure Looks Awfully Healthy

#326

Post by VeejayRampay » Fri, Oct 11, 2013, 1:32 PM UTC

CmonDev wrote: post #292

VeejayRampay wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Python/Ruby/whatever will most likely get faster as access to tools like LLVM and the JVM itself is getting more common these days. You'll still get the HUGE bump in development times (due to the inherent expressiveness of the languages) and at least a good portion of the speed benefits you'd reap from Java itself.

"You'll still get the HUGE bump in development times (due to the inherent expressiveness of the languages)" Not sure if that is true. Maybe for small typical web-projects or server-side scenarios that benefit from thin scripting layer (like at Google). If it is true though, then Haskell and OCAML/F# would be even better because you get expressiveness without loosing the obvious advantages of strong static type system…

Those language are too cryptic for people to adopt them en masse.

There's a reason why Ruby/PHP/Python are so pervasive, 95% of people simply do NOT care about monads and poly-variadic fix-point combinators for mutual recursion.

Re: If Java Is Dying, It Sure Looks Awfully Healthy

#327

Post by EpicEng » Fri, Oct 11, 2013, 10:26 PM UTC

jaggederest wrote: post #159

EpicEng wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Javascript? Really? "Thought leaders" are hopefully just using the best language suited for the job. It often comes down to what kind of code you are writing and what it needs to run on.

You're doubting that Javascript is a popular language for people pushing the forefront of software development? I'd cite for you a ton of the work being done on node, ember, knockout, backbone, jquery, even some embeddable hardware thing I read about on here the other day. There's a huge amount of energy in that area, lots of extremely smart people. Or are you just being snobbish about javascript? It's a pretty solid…

JS is, in general, a relatively poorly designed language which is forced upon us (thankfully, not me). Given the choice people would jump ship in a heartbeat.