Modern Java is pretty succinct and expressive and I enjoy working with it. Like any long-lived project, Java has its quirks and baggage but you can let go of that baggage if you want. The ecosystem is evolving nicely with new features and it is quite pleasant to work with these days. I’m looking forward to migrate apps at work to 26.
Java 26 is here
181–190 of 352 posts
Re: Java 26 is here
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
The counterpoint is that Java has so much SOTA GC work precisely because the language makes writing efficient code that doesn't heavily tax the GC basically impossible.
Tell me you haven't looked at Java in 15 years without telling me. Given that the vast majority of non-GC language code does a terrible job of managing memory, it's not difficult at all for the JVM to win out on efficient, reliable systems.
To be clear, I think that GC is absolutely the right approach, you just need an object model that lets you write idiomatic code that allocates an order of magnitude or 2 less. Once Valhala is (finally) released, the Java ecosystem will start to have the tools to write efficient code (the same tools that C# has had for ~2 decades now), but until then it's just completely impossible to write object oriented code in Java without millions of allocations per second.
Re: Java 26 is here
#183Earlier quoted context omitted.
Use javac directly, in a recent JDK, to compile lots of files at once (i.e. one invocation of javac to compile multiple files) and you'll see. The speed is over 100,000 lines/sec: https://mill-build.org/blog/1-java-compile.html
Seriously a need for a new build tool in Java that doesn't fuck around too much.
Check out mill from the link. It’s quite good.
Re: Java 26 is here
#184I haven't read a Java manual since the time of Java 8. Do you have any books or other resources you could recommend to catch up with all that has changed in these years?
A couple of books were helpful to me, both by Venkat Subramaniam and published by Pragmatic Programmers:
- Functional Programming in Java
- Cruising Along With Java (this covers everything else that is "new" other than functional programming)
Re: Java 26 is here
#185Re: Java 26 is here
#186the people that work on Java & the JVM are very smart. it has become a best of breed language - hell its better than Go for industry purposes. the drawback with Java will always be the CULTURE - (maybe someone can insert a quote of how in physics progress is only made, when old physicist die - I don't wanna be morbid ) but with Java same that's when the culture will change. All those people using typescript (could be…
I didn't use Java since 7, but from people that do - nowadays you basically don't code Java, you code Spring Boot. And that has all the bad things you think when people say "Java". I don't know if it's true though.
I’ve been working in Java for 12 years, my entire career. I have never worked on a Spring project.
Re: Java 26 is here
#187the people that work on Java & the JVM are very smart. it has become a best of breed language - hell its better than Go for industry purposes. the drawback with Java will always be the CULTURE - (maybe someone can insert a quote of how in physics progress is only made, when old physicist die - I don't wanna be morbid ) but with Java same that's when the culture will change. All those people using typescript (could be…
As a Go developer, this is right on the mark. I’ve been hearing good things about Java lately, so I decided to check out the language for the first time since 2012 or something. And I was impressed! The language maintainers have added so many great features while maintaining backwards compatibility. And slowly but surely improved the JVM and garbage collection. So after toying around for a bit, I decided to write som…
Yeah, don't use Spring. If I'm doing DI, I want compile time DI, so Micronaut or Quarkus.
Re: Java 26 is here
#188All the changes look great. But I don't know how I feel about the syntax. A lot of things that very well could be first-class just aren't. Instead of a `lazy` keyword, we get `LazyConstant `. I'm sure there's reasons as to why. I just don't know them.
Because library code is easier to maintain and for people to understand.
And plus if you add a new keyword someone else will complain about complexity of keywords.
Re: Java 26 is here
#189the people that work on Java & the JVM are very smart. it has become a best of breed language - hell its better than Go for industry purposes. the drawback with Java will always be the CULTURE - (maybe someone can insert a quote of how in physics progress is only made, when old physicist die - I don't wanna be morbid ) but with Java same that's when the culture will change. All those people using typescript (could be…
Java isn't even true OO. The only truly OO programming languages that I know of are SmallTalk, Obj-C, and Ruby
Re: Java 26 is here
#190Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder if at we are standing looking at the smoking field of programming languages created over the last 50 years and gazing at the final survivors, of which Java is definitely one. Why would anyone create a new language now? The existing ones are "good enough", and without a body of examples for LLMs to train on, a new language has little chance getting traction. I learned IBM /360 assembler when I started in comp…
> Why would anyone create a new language now? The existing ones are "good enough", and without a body of examples for LLMs to train on, a new language has little chance getting traction. Compiler writing can be an art form and not all art is for mass consumption. > Java has won (alongside many other winners of course), now the AI drawbridge is being raised to stop new entrants and my pick is that Java will still be h…
> This makes no sense to me. If AI possesses intelligence then it should have no problem learning how to use a new language. If it doesn't possess intelligence, we shouldn't be outsourcing all of our programming to it.
Perfection. You have made such an excellent. However, I don't want to detract from that but it's like, in reality, this is a completely obvious point but because of this AI/LLM brain-rot that has taken over the software programmer community, writ large, this is particularly insightful. It's also just a sad and unimaginative state we are in to think that no more programming languages will ever be needed other than what currently exists in March 2026 because of LLMs.