4 ms·

While these would be welcome improvements to Java, the future of Java is not about these sorts of tweaks. What Java really needs to revitalize their ecosystem i

by matrix 10y ago

While these would be welcome improvements to Java, the future of Java is not about these sorts of tweaks. What Java really needs to revitalize their ecosystem is a sustained focus on improving developer experience with modern applications. That means elevating languages like Kotlin and Clojure, and producing modern libraries for basic web development so that there's a foundation of high quality components that people can build with, similar to .NET. Today, Java developers have to pick through a confusing mess of implementations for basic things with highly variable levels of quality and interopability (the biggest gap probably being security).

fauigerzigerk 10y ago
Value types are not a tweak. They are foundational for all JVM languages and the entire ecosystem. Their importance can hardly be overstated.
overgard 10y ago
Its weird how far java has fallen behind C# (especially given that C# was, to put it kindly, originally just basically "microsoft java".) It would seem like Oracle could just follow the blueprint, so I'm sort of surprised they haven't
- jpitz 10y ago
  The falling-behind happened early, and fast. MS took full advantage of second-mover status to change fast and add features. They also targeted fewer platforms initially. While the market niche was certainly aimed squarely at the same demographic as Java users, the language owes as least as much to Borland Object Pascal as it does to Java. Speaking of Object Pascal, MS also got Anders Hejlsburg to design it. Oracle/Sun, stuck with a huge, conservative enterprise user base, was shackled by backwards compatibility. In hindsight, I don't think it weird that Java fell behind the way it did.
  - douche 10y ago
    There was a huge gap of time where effectively there was no forward progress with Java. I learned Java 6 in high school - by the time I graduated college Java 7 still hadn't been released.

by matrix 10y ago

fauigerzigerk 10y ago

Value types are not a tweak. They are foundational for all JVM languages and the entire ecosystem. Their importance can hardly be overstated.

overgard 10y ago

Its weird how far java has fallen behind C# (especially given that C# was, to put it kindly, originally just basically "microsoft java".) It would seem like Oracle could just follow the blueprint, so I'm sort of surprised they haven't

jpitz 10y ago
The falling-behind happened early, and fast. MS took full advantage of second-mover status to change fast and add features. They also targeted fewer platforms initially. While the market niche was certainly aimed squarely at the same demographic as Java users, the language owes as least as much to Borland Object Pascal as it does to Java. Speaking of Object Pascal, MS also got Anders Hejlsburg to design it. Oracle/Sun, stuck with a huge, conservative enterprise user base, was shackled by backwards compatibility. In hindsight, I don't think it weird that Java fell behind the way it did.
- douche 10y ago
  There was a huge gap of time where effectively there was no forward progress with Java. I learned Java 6 in high school - by the time I graduated college Java 7 still hadn't been released.