Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Java Is Underhyped

jackson.sh

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

391–400 of 808 posts

Re: Java Is Underhyped

#391

Post by michaelcampbell »

dunefox wrote: post #366
michaelcampbell wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can't stand python - too wishy-washy. That's an interesting take; my experience has been (at least the community) is quite proudly dogmatic on the One Right Way To Do It, for all values of "It". I also don't like Python, but I think for different reasons and perhaps a bit less than you. Never used R, but I understand it to be quite fiddly.

> my experience has been (at least the community) is quite proudly dogmatic on the One Right Way To Do It, for all values of "It". This hasn't been true lately. Python is growing ever more complex.

I hear you and agree to an extent; my suspicion is the influx of non-CS self-styled "data scientists" using Python for all the ML hype has diluted the historical rabidness.

But, for people still working in "computer science-y" domains, I haven't seen the historical dogmatism lessen; in many cases people are digging in.

Re: Java Is Underhyped

#392

Post by V-2 »

wwn_se wrote: post #136
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #119

For my use cases, Java has all the wrong compromises: - not high level enough to compete with Python/Ruby/JS/PHP, etc - not low level enough to compete with Rust/D/Nim/Zig - not specialized enough to compete with Erlang/R/Go/Julia - not opinionated enough to compete with Lisp/Haskell So why use Java ? It's good, it's fast, it's productive, it's well supported, battle tested and documented for decades with a huge pool…

Python projects that start to grow has a tendency to become hard to manage in a way that I have not seen in Java at all. Java is like you say not the greatest at anything but it is also not the worst at anything. Its great for projects where the you don't know what you should optimize for or don't care. If java is to boring maybe kotlin is the way to go. I really like kotlin and in my personal experience the only dow…

"the IDEs is not as good as the java counterparts yet"

How do you mean? What IDEs are you referring to? Kotlin is fully (and very well) supported in IntelliJ Idea - unsurprisingly so, given that it's JetBrains own invention...

Re: Java Is Underhyped

#393

Post by MichaelRazum »

mnw21cam wrote: post #225
wwn_se wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Python projects that start to grow has a tendency to become hard to manage in a way that I have not seen in Java at all. Java is like you say not the greatest at anything but it is also not the worst at anything. Its great for projects where the you don't know what you should optimize for or don't care. If java is to boring maybe kotlin is the way to go. I really like kotlin and in my personal experience the only dow…

I write software in Java. I can't stand python - too wishy-washy. But my main complaint about Python is trying to use someone else's software. Then it degenerates into a maze of twisty little passages of trying to install the correct set of dependencies, not knowing where those files are installed (which makes it difficult on a cluster, as you may need to do the install on every node separately). Then you try using p…

You are kind of right. Install non standard stuff in python is sometimes pain. BUT you can do it absolutely right. Also most of the time only few packages make you trouble. So you just need sometimes a fix for them. That's it. You even can download it and make it completely offline. Instagram is running on python... so it is battle tested. By the way, I would always try to avoid anaconda in production.

Re: Java Is Underhyped

#394

Post by ElectricMind »

I am creature of habits. I like consistency in my world. I hate chaos. Java is not perfect language. But with Java I feel peaceful. At least I am not surprised by my own code. Underhyped or overhyped - I am with Java :)

Re: Java Is Underhyped

#395

Post by goto11 »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #119

For my use cases, Java has all the wrong compromises: - not high level enough to compete with Python/Ruby/JS/PHP, etc - not low level enough to compete with Rust/D/Nim/Zig - not specialized enough to compete with Erlang/R/Go/Julia - not opinionated enough to compete with Lisp/Haskell So why use Java ? It's good, it's fast, it's productive, it's well supported, battle tested and documented for decades with a huge pool…

Your premise is that you are able to chose a language based on how appropriate it is for a specific use case. This alone shows you are not the typical user of Java!

Java is typically used in larger or long-lived organizations. It is rare to start new projects from scratch. Most development is maintenance and extension of existing systems. Even if you start a greenfield project, it would be most prudent to chose the same platform and language which is already used in the organization. An alternative language would not only have to be better, it would have to be very significantly better to make up for the overhead and headache in maintaining code in multiple languages - never mind the increased difficulty in hiring and training developers.

Geeks tend to evaluate language based on how appropriate they would be for a greenfield project with no organizational baggage. But this is an extremely rare use case for most business.

HN often has reports about startups rewriting everything from scratch every four months, when a new language or platform becomes fashionable. But this is not the world where most developers live.

Re: Java Is Underhyped

#396

Post by drdec »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #193
Nursie wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You know the joke: a dev has a problem, uses Java, and now has a ProblemFactory :) I think this joke is probably about as dated as the versions of java it was made about.

Unfortunatly, I know a lot of devs that don't even know it's a joke. Singleton is still a design pattern used in the wild.

The cool devs don't use the Singleton pattern anymore, we use @ApplicationScoped.

(Poe's Law disclaimer: yes, that was light sarcasm.)

Re: Java Is Underhyped

#398

Post by ebiester »

dkarl wrote: post #381

This post from "an ignorant computer science undergrad" is pretty silly, so allow me to get a little silly in response. I think if Java's new features are an attempt to woo new developers, Java comes off pretty tragically, like the old guy in the club, trying stay relevant by showing off how it just got up to date with ideas that hit the mainstream ten years ago. Whoa, check out these record classes! Fresh stuff over…

More importantly, there are likely billions of lines of java code in production at this point, and just having that as an option matters for those code bases.

It might not be what you choose for a new company, but it may not be fashionable here but it is very common and quality of life improvements are welcome.

Re: Java Is Underhyped

#399

Post by pbadenski »

cle wrote: post #47
LaserToy wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Verbosity is not a problem in large code bases. Speed of understanding and debugging of what somebody else wrote is. So, less magic is better. I will take Java codebase over Scala or Python every time, unless it is a toy script which is 100 lines

Every significant Java codebase I've worked in has had incredible amounts of magic. Between AOP, DI frameworks, APT, reflection, proxies, SPI, Lombok compiler hacks, dynamic classloaders, etc., there is a LOT of magic flying around and it can be quite hard to understand what will happen at runtime.

ALL Java developers should be required to watch this course (it's Free):

https://software-mastery.teachable.com/p/uncommon-sense

FYI: I am NOT an author of this course.

Re: Java Is Underhyped

#400

Post by V-2 »

thiht wrote: post #112

> Java is fun to write, productive What the hell? I don't think we have the same definition for any of these words. I know Java has changed quite a bit since Java 8 (Java 9 being the last version I used professionally before switching completely to Go), but I just can't write Java again, it's physical. When I want to try a new Java feature and think about writing the scaffolding code, my stomach actually hurts. Not t…

I also don't understand where is the "fun to write" aspect exactly that the author insists about.

"This cannot be understated: Java simply feels good to write"

But why?

The only explanation that follows is that "a lot of this is due to the craftsmanship JetBrains puts into IntelliJ IDEA. Everything is autocompleted, jump-to-definition is fast, find-usage works well, and refactoring is easy".

I too think that IDEA is an excellent IDE, but why should Java take the credit for it. If anything, the more it needs an excellent IDE in order to feel pleasant, the worse it says about the language itself.

It really looks to me like the "ignorant computer science undergrad" mainly worked with JavaScript (having only dabbled with C++ and a few other languages as part of his uni courses), and got excited by discovering a proper IDE and a statically typed language that happens to have a low entry threshold.

Post reply on HN