Live data from Hacker News

Rise and fall of JVM languages

blog.frankel.ch

51–60 of 233 posts

Re: Rise and fall of JVM languages

#51
post #49
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Java was cool when I started using it "in anger" in 1995. It was going to be a totally new way of delivering software on the fly over the network (that's why all the package names look like reverse domain names). I moved to Python when Java gave up on the dream and became the new COBOL after the dotcom crash.

> It was going to be a totally new way of delivering software on the fly over the network That sounds really interesting! Has any documentation survived about that?

Lots. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_applet and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_Web_Start for links.

Re: Rise and fall of JVM languages

#53
post #25

You forget scala-native project: https://github.com/scala-native/scala-native It seems to have major traction looking at contributions trend. Together with scala.js it open up the scala language to three different outputs: native (LLVM), js and JVM. Great strategy in my opinion.

How does it compare to Kotlin native/JS outputs?

In terms of what?

Re: Rise and fall of JVM languages

#54

I wonder why Kotlin beat Scala in this virtual programming language traction game. I don't write code for the JVM anymore, but Kotlin occupies the same space as Scala. Was it compilation speed? Corporate support?

Scala is much more complex language. Kotlin is more complex, than Java, but its complexity is just enough to cover major Java pain points. Scala brings its own huge library with features that I don't need. Billions of abstract collections, but all I need is HashMap and ArrayList. They generalize over builders, so `filter` can return some fancy underlying class, but all I need for filter is to return ArrayList or lazy…

>"Kotlin is more complex, than Java, but its complexity is just enough to cover major Java pain points."

Would you mind elaborating on what those Java pain points are that Kotlin smoothes over?

Also are people deploying Kotlin on the server side or do you see that being a thing in the future? For some reason I have this(perhaps incorrect) association Kotlin only in the context of Android. But maybe that's incorrect?

Re: Rise and fall of JVM languages

#55
post #2

I'm not a Java guy, but I'm still wondering why nobody every wrote a JVM with near-zero startup time.

AOT compilation and Project Jigsaw coming up in Java 9 should improve the JVM startup time. Although I guess it won't speed up the loading of applications written in other JVM languages much as it's not really JVM's fault.

Re: Rise and fall of JVM languages

#56
This article is very poorly thought out. First and foremost it talks about the __fall__ of JVM languages yet it forecasts good things for all of those languages. The author also failed to check out things like the TIOBE index where Java is still at the top. Not to mention that Clojure hasn't even been mentioned which is a __huge__ letdown since Clojure is the only pure functional language which is native to the JVM.

Re: Rise and fall of JVM languages

#57

I wonder why Kotlin beat Scala in this virtual programming language traction game. I don't write code for the JVM anymore, but Kotlin occupies the same space as Scala. Was it compilation speed? Corporate support?

Not using scala or Kotlin. But if others think like me, I bet the scala syntax is stopping them from touching it with a stick.

Yep I'm not even not touching it I'm not looking either. Kotlin is 1000x times more readable and writable.

Re: Rise and fall of JVM languages

#58
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It was going to be a totally new way of delivering software on the fly over the network That sounds really interesting! Has any documentation survived about that?

Lots. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_applet and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_Web_Start for links.

You forgot Jini, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jini

Also Oberon was another system that also allowed for something like Java applets, called Juice.

http://www.modulaware.com/mdlt69.htm

Re: Rise and fall of JVM languages

#59

> I decided Scala made it too easy to write code unreadable for most developers As a side note, this seems to be the biggest detractor for Scala. Any team that I have spoken to with Scala experience seem to have had projects that went too 'Scala/functional'.

Scala is the Perl of the JVM. :D

Re: Rise and fall of JVM languages

#60

I wonder why Kotlin beat Scala in this virtual programming language traction game. I don't write code for the JVM anymore, but Kotlin occupies the same space as Scala. Was it compilation speed? Corporate support?

It is not hard to beat a language which is writable and not readable. Kotlin is pragmatic, it has a purpose and that purpose is to enable Java programmers to be __much__ faster. Scala on the other hand is an academic language full of arcane features which is the result of some mental masturbation (as admitted by its creator Mr. Odersky). So it is not rocket science to answer your question.
Post reply on HN