21–30 of 30 posts
Java is the "hammer" in the metaphorical IT toolbox. Sure, niche and very useful tools are in the toolbox too, and all have their place, but ... to stretch the metaphor a little further, no toolbox is complete without a hammer. to any real developer, popularity is an irrelevant metric
This kind of metrics has limited value. Not only popularity is not an absolute thing, it's also difficult to measure.
Us, hacker news readers, have fun with our javascript, coffesecript, ruby, etc. projects. But if you're in the corporate world you need to pull the heavy guns, not the good looking ones.
Many are saying tat java is the new cobol, that's a good metaphor IMO. And if it is, it's not going to go anywhere.
As for me, I wouldn't mind continuing firing up eclipse every day and proceed with my daily usage of java for the next 5-10 years.
But I see programming languages as just means to an end. For me popularity is not as important as other things to consider like maintainability, ramp-up time, etc.
If a developer can choose what to code on, he should choose the programming language that he feels comfortable with, and one in which he can get the job done in the best possible way and with the least amount of resources.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's true only if by "apps" you mean web only. Java is not the most popular language/technology to turn to unless you are facing amazingly large scale or performance is critical. For startups developing in Java is probably not a great idea, because startups need to respond to change fast and get things up and running fast, and languages like Python, Ruby, some kind of LISP are way better at that. You can always re-…
I actually worked for a startup who wanted who wanted their apps written in Java because it "scales". To this day they don't realize hardware is cheaper than deveopers.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I actually worked for a startup who wanted who wanted their apps written in Java because it "scales". To this day they don't realize hardware is cheaper than deveopers.
Hardware isn't cheaper than developers when working on massive scale. See this: http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/C-and-Beyond-2011-Herb-Sutter...
Java is the "hammer" in the metaphorical IT toolbox. Sure, niche and very useful tools are in the toolbox too, and all have their place, but ... to stretch the metaphor a little further, no toolbox is complete without a hammer. to any real developer, popularity is an irrelevant metric
How could popularity be an irrelevant metric? Why you know the languages that you know and not the other 99%?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I actually worked for a startup who wanted who wanted their apps written in Java because it "scales". To this day they don't realize hardware is cheaper than deveopers.
Read the well documented example of Twitter. This is the kind of scale I'm talking about.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's because their apps are written in Java and they need people to maintain them. Java isn't going anywhere for a while.
That's true only if by "apps" you mean web only. Java is not the most popular language/technology to turn to unless you are facing amazingly large scale or performance is critical. For startups developing in Java is probably not a great idea, because startups need to respond to change fast and get things up and running fast, and languages like Python, Ruby, some kind of LISP are way better at that. You can always re-…
The perfect combination would be a dynamic language for the web server that calls a java based web service for most of the functionality (Jersey rocks)
How often do developers get to truly choose the language they use? Developers usually go where the jobs are. There are a lot of Java systems out there. Doesn't necessarily mean Java is or isn't a "popular" language. I'd be more interested if there is any data on how many newly started projects are using Java compared to other environments.
How often do developers get to truly choose the language they use? Every day There's absolutely nothing stopping any developer from learning other skills and changing jobs. I was an enterprise dev that taught myself Ruby in the evenings until I had enough skill to move away from the enterprise world. I've been making a living from Ruby coding for just over 3 years now (probably worth noting that I'm almost 40 and hav…
Sure, that works to an extent. I was a .NET developer and now I work in Ruby and JavaScript. But if I really had my druthers I'd be writing games for a living. But we can't all work for Valve. So it still remains that for many developers they take what they can get. Some aren't talented enough to get the job they really want. Others have other obligations that prevent them (such as families, geography, the economy, etc).
So it still remains that many people code in Java because there are large, entrenched systems written in Java that need maintaining. I of course have no research to support this, but something tells me most developers -- especially passionate ones -- would not choose to work in Java over all other possibilities in 2011.