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Stop hating Java

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Re: Stop hating Java

#111

Post by raganwald »

16s wrote: post #12

It's been my experience that most people who put down Java or C++ or [your language here] have never seriously used the language and are insecure about learning a new language so they make fun of other languages to hide their insecurity. Edit: I'll also add that this is not limited to the Ruby community. One last edit: General Patton once said, "Find what a man is cynical about, and you will know his weaknesses." or…

Since you said "most people," I guess I'm disqualified from saying that I have deep Java experience and dislike the language, you can simply retort that I'm not a True Scotsman, I'm just an outlier. But nevertheless, I press on. I built Java development tools in C++, I led teams of 20+ devs, I built online banking applications, I wrote a Scheme interpreter in Java, yak, yak, yak, and yes I put Java down.

C++ is another matter entirely. My experience is pre-Boost, so I don't consider myself qualified to debate current approaches.

Re: Stop hating Java

#112

Post by bromagosa »

Fid wrote: post #100

Job search in New York City on Dice.com: Java - 2698 Ruby - 204 Even within the Ruby jobs, the majority have a Java requirement within them as well. Been hearing Ruby aficionados for like a decade, but sorry, it just hasn't penetrated.

I think this metric is invalid, the market rarely takes what's best, but rather what's trendy.

Before you begin to troll me, what I'm saying is that >>the metric is not valid<<, not that one language is better than the other.

Re: Stop hating Java

#113

Post by podperson »

No. I prefer to continue hating Java.

Having recently decided to abandon my anti-Java prejudice from way back I've discovered that everything I hated about Java back in the 90s is still there, only worse.

COBOL at least had the excuse that it was first.

Re: Stop hating Java

#114

Post by run4yourlives »

a5seo wrote: post #67

Another reason to stop hating on Java is that in a lot of cities, it would be a fool's errand to assemble another kind of dev team. Like Ruby? Great. Good luck building a team in Omaha. Skills go where the jobs are: http://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=ruby&l=Omaha%2C+NE = 11 jobs http://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=j2ee&l=Omaha%2C+NE = 101 jobs Bottom line: if you expect to hire developers, in most places, you'll want a language w…

Hiring any programmer that can't adapt to an unfamiliar new language is a bad idea (TM).

I'm far from a guru, but I've been able to pick up quite a few different languages, frameworks and structures over my tenure. It's the ones that limit themselves to a single language (be it Java or not) for long periods of time that you need to worry about.

These are the programmers that will build a square wheel because that's what the spec told them to build. Employ them at your peril.

Re: Stop hating Java

#115

Post by benmccann »

mattmcknight wrote: post #51

I've done a ton of Java work, server side and desktop apps. What really amuses me about Java advocates is how they don't realize that the XML is not there for "configuration", it's there to form a dynamic (non-statically typed) appendage to the language. The trick of Spring and similar tools is that under the covers they use the reflection API. It's sort of a joke to claim that you are using static typing, when the c…

Java != XML

I code in Java all day every day and I haven't touched a line of XML in years.

Re: Stop hating Java

#116

Post by bmm6o »

msluyter wrote: post #105
eropple wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. What many GoF critics seem not to understand is that Design Patterns is descriptive, not prescriptive. It's "what we've seen," not "what you should use."

I've heard people say that, but if that's true, why didn't they include many of the (much more commonly used, IME) patterns like Big Ball of Mud, Stovepipe System, Spaghetti Code, etc...? There's lots of nightmarish patterns/techniques that were omitted. I find no plausible way to account for that other than that the patterns are (perhaps implicitly) prescriptive.

Those are covered in the anti-pattern book.

Re: Stop hating Java

#118

Post by geebee »

mironathetin wrote: post #49
zeemonkee wrote: post #39

I think a lot of the Java hate is because of the architecture astronauts who hijacked the language in the last decade - J2EE/EJB, the GoF, FactoryFactoryFactory shit and so on. I remember seeing the earlier versions of the servlet API and it was very elegant and well designed; unfortunately once the astronauts were through with it writing Java web apps became such a form of mental torture (Struts, anyone?) that even…

... architecture astronauts who hijacked the language in the last decade - J2EE/EJB, the GoF ... Thank you for writing this. When I first read the GoF Design Pattern Book I thought "this is the reason, why the code in my project is bloated, unmaintainable and shitty".

Jive turkeys who apply patterns for the sake of applying patterns are the reason the code was bad. But don't blame the GoF.

Re: Stop hating Java

#119

Post by discreteevent »

raganwald wrote: post #108
zeemonkee wrote: post #39

I think a lot of the Java hate is because of the architecture astronauts who hijacked the language in the last decade - J2EE/EJB, the GoF, FactoryFactoryFactory shit and so on. I remember seeing the earlier versions of the servlet API and it was very elegant and well designed; unfortunately once the astronauts were through with it writing Java web apps became such a form of mental torture (Struts, anyone?) that even…

As someone who was deeply involved with Java a decade ago, I feel your pain over the "hijacking." In truth, that crowd would have hijacked anything that came their way, it is a dynamic strongly influenced by the BigCo culture, it isn't really a tool thing. The moment you set up "throw it over the wall" processes where architects are rewarded for architecture and implementors are blamed for bugs, you are going down th…

That is precisely the root cause of it. Well spotted.

Re: Stop hating Java

#120

Post by Fid »

bromagosa wrote: post #112
Fid wrote: post #100

Job search in New York City on Dice.com: Java - 2698 Ruby - 204 Even within the Ruby jobs, the majority have a Java requirement within them as well. Been hearing Ruby aficionados for like a decade, but sorry, it just hasn't penetrated.

I think this metric is invalid, the market rarely takes what's best, but rather what's trendy. Before you begin to troll me, what I'm saying is that >>the metric is not valid<<, not that one language is better than the other.

While being strong in the market doesn't necessarily quantify better/worse or more/less elegant. But it does mean the tires have been kicked a lot more.
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