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Don’t call it a comeback: Java is still champ

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Re: Don’t call it a comeback: Java is still champ

#61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corollas don't come with all sorts of weird (now aging) buzzword-driven preferences like nudging you towards xml, factories, etc.

Personal rant: I've never understood the hate towards XML. It's a practical and flexible markup language that does not depend on whitespace or quoting every bloody thing. Plus, every markup language invented since has had to re-invent XML things that, surprise surprise were actually needed. Paths, schemas, comments, etc. I get frustrated with JSON because of things I could do in XML that I can't do in JSON without br…

Java/.NET have first class support for XML and SOAP, most other languages don't. It's too easy to use XML in those languages. Other languages don't have that tooling or support and it's just a slog.

Re: Don’t call it a comeback: Java is still champ

#62

The biggest thing Java is missing is full hot swap. Its been implemented via the dcevm but, inexplicably, has been ignored by both sun and oracle. This one, existing technology would make Java DX on par with the dynamic languages

> The biggest thing Java is missing is full hot swap

The biggest thing missing in Java is an answer for the billion-dollar mistake. Real world Java is plagued by NPEs because a lot of Java is written by low caliber programmers. Java + functional error handling would be a monumental improvement.

Re: Don’t call it a comeback: Java is still champ

#63
post #27

The only problem Java has is experienced C programmers don't build servers from scratch with it yet. Once they take that responsibility, the debate will be over because: "While I'm on the topic of concurrency I should mention my far too brief chat with Doug Lea. He commented that multi-threaded Java these days far outperforms C, due to the memory management and a garbage collector. If I recall correctly he said "only…

> To use anything else (than JavaSE without heavy deps.) on the server is madness.

That's a terribly broad generalization. There are multiple other options that are entirely sane.

Re: Don’t call it a comeback: Java is still champ

#64
post #5

Java's adequate. It's like a Toyota Corolla (insert your boring car of choice here if you don't feel this one works for the analogy). Not the prettiest, not the fastest, not the most efficient. But it gets you from point A to point B with little fuss or muss. I totally get why companies adopt and standardize on it. Do I use it for personal projects? Nope. Because it's not fun to "drive". For that, I pick the equivale…

My problem with Java is that C# exists which does huge portions of the stuff Java excels at just… better. Before, .NET only ran on Windows which disqualified it from many serious applications server deployments. Today, this is no longer the case for everything but cross platform GUI libraries, and even those are an option if you're okay with not having Linux support. It's more akin to the old car you had just before…

> but I think it'll slowly move the way of COBOL and FORTRAN

That could be true of any language that's achieved great popularity, but in 2022 Java is the language that dominates server-side development (by plurality, not majority), it is a technological leader in areas of compilation, garbage collection, and low-overhead in-production profiling, no other single language looks posed to seriously challenges Java's dominant position on the server (as PHP seemed for a while), and, at 27, it is more popular than COBOL was in its (rather short) heyday.

But it is true that Java is among a select set of languages (alongside Python, JavaScript, and C) that have managed to achieve a level of success sufficient to become "a COBOL" or "a Fortran" someday.

Re: Don’t call it a comeback: Java is still champ

#65
post #2

I've ditched Spring, am using Vert.x with Java 17, reactive & functional styles, records. Seems like a completely different language. If only project Loom will get out there so I wont be coding everything like Javascript I'd be happy. :)

Weird Spring is the reason why i am sticking to Java

Spring would be my only reason to ditch Java.

Re: Don’t call it a comeback: Java is still champ

#66
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm Javascript has async though, no?

That's exactly what was meant. With Loom Java will hopefully not have the same function split as languages like JavaScript (or C# for that matter) where you have to add lots of async/await everywhere; and instead will have something like Go (where everything is async). https://journal.stuffwithstuff.com/2015/02/01/what-color-is-...

I guess I was confused because right now you do not code Java like that.

Re: Don’t call it a comeback: Java is still champ

#67
I spent almost all of my career writing Ruby before I ended up at a company that required me to write mostly Kotlin (a bit of scala here and there too). After a few years of Kotlin I don't want to use anything else. There's a bit more ceremony to getting things set up but the experience of writing Kotlin with Intellij IDEA has been so wonderful I'm happy to keep doing it.

Re: Don’t call it a comeback: Java is still champ

#68
post #63
post #27

The only problem Java has is experienced C programmers don't build servers from scratch with it yet. Once they take that responsibility, the debate will be over because: "While I'm on the topic of concurrency I should mention my far too brief chat with Doug Lea. He commented that multi-threaded Java these days far outperforms C, due to the memory management and a garbage collector. If I recall correctly he said "only…

> To use anything else (than JavaSE without heavy deps.) on the server is madness. That's a terribly broad generalization. There are multiple other options that are entirely sane.

What other good dynamic runtimes with widespread use like the JVM exist?

Re: Don’t call it a comeback: Java is still champ

#69
post #6

Being taught intro Java in high school (mid 2000s for me) was excruciatingly boring and caused me to write off majoring in computer science or working as a programmer. Today I'm a software engineer with experience in JavaScript, Ruby, Python, Elixir... maybe it's time for me to give Java another try.

You might want to start with C. C is a lot more enjoyable to learn and use, and once you know C you basically already know Java. (Assuming you understand OO concepts in general, anyway)

Re: Don’t call it a comeback: Java is still champ

#70
post #5

Java's adequate. It's like a Toyota Corolla (insert your boring car of choice here if you don't feel this one works for the analogy). Not the prettiest, not the fastest, not the most efficient. But it gets you from point A to point B with little fuss or muss. I totally get why companies adopt and standardize on it. Do I use it for personal projects? Nope. Because it's not fun to "drive". For that, I pick the equivale…

Whoever invented the car analogy should pay for what they did.

I think the car analogy is just extending a base analogy. There could be other siblings. Perhaps AnimalAnalogy could extend BaseAnalogy and we could talk about animals instead? ;)
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