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Java is too old, What should you learn in 2018?

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Re: Java is too old, What should you learn in 2018?

#11

Post by paulddraper »

vorg wrote: post #3
chipuni wrote: post #2

With a title like that, the article should explore many new languages out there and what they offer a programmer. Instead, this article just answers its question with one word: Kotlin. I get it; Kotlin is easier to write in than Java. But the article should list why it's better than Scala or Clojure, if we're restricting ourselves to JVM languages. (And why should we?) There's 48 languages more common than Kotlin, ac…

By restricting ourselves to the JVM, we can introduce Kotlin code gradually because it can run side-by-side with legacy Java code. Unlike the other JVM languages, Kotlin has been designed to work seamlessly with an IDE. It doesn't introduce as much extra symbol syntax as Scala so it's still readable. And it was designed to be statically-compiled from the ground up, unlike Clojure and Apache Groovy which both bolted o…

> Unlike the other JVM languages, Kotlin has been designed to work seamlessly with an IDE.

Specifically, one IDE: Intellij.

Outside that one case, support is just as good/bad as Scala.

Re: Java is too old, What should you learn in 2018?

#12

Post by neverminder »

chipuni wrote: post #2

With a title like that, the article should explore many new languages out there and what they offer a programmer. Instead, this article just answers its question with one word: Kotlin. I get it; Kotlin is easier to write in than Java. But the article should list why it's better than Scala or Clojure, if we're restricting ourselves to JVM languages. (And why should we?) There's 48 languages more common than Kotlin, ac…

> There's 48 languages more common than Kotlin, according to https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/ . Why is it better than all of them?

Funny you should say that:

TIOBE Index for May 2018

May Headline: Scala cracks top 20

Re: Java is too old, What should you learn in 2018?

#13

Post by animal531 »

romwell wrote: post #4

While there are many great reasons to learn languages like Scala and Kotlin, "Java is old" is not the right one (for one, it's false). The functional programming elements in Java 8 ( And in any way, the title is misleading. It should have been "Kotlin: here is why we think it's better than Java 5" - because that's the actual content of the article. I like learning about new languages, but I wish the article had more.…

Right, the same goes for C#. And even ignoring all the new (functional) elements it's still really dumb to say that you shouldn't learn something because it's "old".

By the time half of the current crop of new languages have died Java and C# will still be in use at large scale.

Re: Java is too old, What should you learn in 2018?

#14

Post by cathhhhji »

RandyRanderson wrote: post #6

I wish that there was a way to remove from hn author posts with obvious clickbait/incendiary titles like this. I don't care to see any posts ever again from this author.

HN desperately needs filters. There are specific topics (like Facebook) that I have no interest in seeing. Filtering out specific users would be great too.

Re: Java is too old, What should you learn in 2018?

#15

Post by JBReefer »

cathhhhji wrote: post #14
RandyRanderson wrote: post #6

I wish that there was a way to remove from hn author posts with obvious clickbait/incendiary titles like this. I don't care to see any posts ever again from this author.

HN desperately needs filters. There are specific topics (like Facebook) that I have no interest in seeing. Filtering out specific users would be great too.

Maybe we could make a plugin? I don't care at all about discussions (and usually can't stand the comments on) bitcoin, the Bay Area housing disaster, C, etc.

It can't be that hard, the CSS selectors for posts are really simple.

Re: Java is too old, What should you learn in 2018?

#16

Post by haglin »

Java has changed a lot over the years, for example generics, lambdas, default methods, type inference, and new things are in the pipeline, for example value types, data classes, and pattern matching.

The JDK libraries has also grown. You could probably spend a week just learning about java.util.concurrent.* and how to write efficient multithreaded code.

Re: Java is too old, What should you learn in 2018?

#17

Post by paulddraper »

neverminder wrote: post #12
chipuni wrote: post #2

With a title like that, the article should explore many new languages out there and what they offer a programmer. Instead, this article just answers its question with one word: Kotlin. I get it; Kotlin is easier to write in than Java. But the article should list why it's better than Scala or Clojure, if we're restricting ourselves to JVM languages. (And why should we?) There's 48 languages more common than Kotlin, ac…

> There's 48 languages more common than Kotlin, according to https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/ . Why is it better than all of them? Funny you should say that: TIOBE Index for May 2018 May Headline: Scala cracks top 20

TIL that Ada is more popular than Kotlin.
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