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Interesting coming from a blog titled I love groovy. I take from that the guy writing it already realises the value of alternative JVM languages and is even a

Interesting coming from a blog titled I love groovy. I take from that the guy writing it already realises the value of alternative JVM languages and is even a big fan of one, so why hold fast to pure Java? If you want to find good developers on the platform, maybe broaden your scope beyond the aspect of it you're having trouble with. I know plenty of people that use JVM languages and very few of them that wouldn't avoid using pure java if at all possible simultaneously.

pvg 16y ago
This doesn't help as much as you might expect. To be a decent JVM-hosted language developer, you still need to be a reasonably handy Java developer, even if you aren't writing pure Java. You need to know a fair a bit about the basics of the JVM, the core Java class libraries, the Java ecosystem in general. So, a junior Java developer, which is what the author is looking for in the first place.
- etherael 16y ago
  Perhaps I explained my position poorly. As an example, I could qualify for this role due to my experience with Groovy and thus Java by extension, but I wouldn't be interested in it because I wouldn't be satisfied in any position where I was restricted to pure Java.
technomancy 16y ago
> I know plenty of people that use JVM languages and very few of them that wouldn't avoid using pure java if at all possible simultaneously. Probably true of Scala/Groovy, but definitely not for JRuby or Clojure. Only ~32% of Clojure developers even know Java, according to the recent community survey.
- regularfry 16y ago
  I'd bet that while they don't self-identify as "knowing Java," a large proportion of the other 68% would be happy trawling javadocs and getting javac (or Eclipse) to do the right thing. I would argue that's "knowing Java" well enough to get a job writing it, if they wished.
  - technomancy 16y ago
    Well... I can read Java decently and browse javadocs just fine, but the parent was explicitly talking about writing Java, which I've never done and would probably be pretty bad at. I think this is quite common among Clojure developers.
    - regularfry 16y ago
      writing Java, which I've never done and would probably be pretty bad at Something tells me that you could still get a job doing it, it just might not be a job you particularly wanted :-) Seriously, though, clojure devs are a funny group. Clojure isn't anybody's first language at this point, and for the majority it's probably not even their third or fourth language, so they're already selecting for people who not only can, but choose to and enjoy learning new languages which are demonstrably deeper and have more details to learn than Java. Not only that, the language was specifically designed to be easy to learn. What I've found trick with Java isn't the language, though - it's the ecosystem. Just trying to figure out which way is up in a Tomcat installation, for instance, is an absolute bear.

pvg 16y ago

This doesn't help as much as you might expect. To be a decent JVM-hosted language developer, you still need to be a reasonably handy Java developer, even if you aren't writing pure Java. You need to know a fair a bit about the basics of the JVM, the core Java class libraries, the Java ecosystem in general. So, a junior Java developer, which is what the author is looking for in the first place.

etherael 16y ago
Perhaps I explained my position poorly. As an example, I could qualify for this role due to my experience with Groovy and thus Java by extension, but I wouldn't be interested in it because I wouldn't be satisfied in any position where I was restricted to pure Java.

technomancy 16y ago

> I know plenty of people that use JVM languages and very few of them that wouldn't avoid using pure java if at all possible simultaneously. Probably true of Scala/Groovy, but definitely not for JRuby or Clojure. Only ~32% of Clojure developers even know Java, according to the recent community survey.

regularfry 16y ago
I'd bet that while they don't self-identify as "knowing Java," a large proportion of the other 68% would be happy trawling javadocs and getting javac (or Eclipse) to do the right thing. I would argue that's "knowing Java" well enough to get a job writing it, if they wished.
- technomancy 16y ago
  Well... I can read Java decently and browse javadocs just fine, but the parent was explicitly talking about writing Java, which I've never done and would probably be pretty bad at. I think this is quite common among Clojure developers.
  - regularfry 16y ago
    writing Java, which I've never done and would probably be pretty bad at Something tells me that you could still get a job doing it, it just might not be a job you particularly wanted :-) Seriously, though, clojure devs are a funny group. Clojure isn't anybody's first language at this point, and for the majority it's probably not even their third or fourth language, so they're already selecting for people who not only can, but choose to and enjoy learning new languages which are demonstrably deeper and have more details to learn than Java. Not only that, the language was specifically designed to be easy to learn. What I've found trick with Java isn't the language, though - it's the ecosystem. Just trying to figure out which way is up in a Tomcat installation, for instance, is an absolute bear.