5 ms·

The people I've met who like Java are the kind of people who don't know any other programming language. In fact, I'm not sure I can think of a worse language th

by mruts 8y ago

The people I've met who like Java are the kind of people who don't know any other programming language. In fact, I'm not sure I can think of a worse language than Java. Moreover, when people say the like Java, what they really mean is that they like the JVM.

noisem4ker 8y ago
I've had to study and use my share of programming languages, from C to Haskell. Java is just one of them, and it's the one I like the most. Want to know a language undoubtedly worse than Java? Easy. Append "Script" to it.
yjftsjthsd-h 8y ago
> In fact, I'm not sure I can think of a worse language than Java. COBOL. BASIC, including VBA. Older versions of FORTRAN. All real languages used widely and in production, all far worse than Java.
- a-saleh 8y ago
  I for one, LOVE both BASIC and VBA :-) But maybe that is just nostalgia speaking, BASIC was my first language :)
- i_am_proteus 8y ago
  Not sure the Fortran dig is fair. FORTRAN77 was good for the applications it was designed for in 1978. Modern Fortran is still useful for scientific computing.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 8y ago
    I would argue that even for the time early versions were not particularly ergonomic or nice to work with. And yes, I will actually be the first to defend modern Fortran; calling out older versions specifically was a very intentional choice on my part. Granted, I'm unclear on how much the newer variants are used; legacy code bases form a pretty big backlog.
  - 4thaccount 8y ago
    There's a brand new "Modern Fortran" book coming out of Manning publishing that covers parallel computing. As someone who doesn't program Fortran, but has read a lot of vendor Fortran (77' and 90') and C++, I vastly prefer Fortran. No, I wouldn't use it for a standard enterprise app, but it really shines for numeric computing where it has a lot of what is required baked into the native language. It is very fast and no-nonsense.
- poizan42 8y ago
  Or MUMPS. Even the name is horrible. https://thedailywtf.com/articles/A_Case_of_the_MUMPS https://thedailywtf.com/articles/A_Case_of_the_MUMPS
  - Fins 8y ago
    It's not that bad, for it's time, and the storage mechanism is very good for right purposes.
coldtea 8y ago
>In fact, I'm not sure I can think of a worse language than Java. That's because you're inexperienced.
- mruts 8y ago
  Fine. I can’t think of any other modern language that is worse than Java. And why would you think I’m inexperienced based on that view alone?
  - coldtea 8y ago
    Because it is just naive cargo cult of the kind fresh programmers (and/or ever-fresh programmers) repeat. It doesn't take into account the purpose of the language, the ecosystem, the quality of the compiler, gc, et al, the evolution of the syntax and semantics, the available libraries, and so on. It's just a knee jerk reaction (following old wives tales) of the "Java is verbose", "Java is slow", "Java is this", "Java is that", only staying at the surface level, and based on 2005-era enterprise Java coding practices.
    - nitrogen 8y ago
      All of those things are still true in certain contexts. Java is verbose compared to Kotlin or Ruby. Java is slow at initial JVM launch. Many 2005-era enterprise coding practices are still in very wide use for new projects.
      - coldtea 8y ago
        >Java is verbose compared to Kotlin or Ruby. True. But Kotlin was developed with 20+ years of hindsight, and Ruby is dynamic and pays by being slow for many of its higher level features that make it less verbose. And even Java is much less verbose today, with "var" and "closures", and functional interfaces, and auto inference. The main cause of verbosity in Java code was BS J2EE fashion (throw in all kinds of Patterns to make it "enterprise"). This -- the 2005-era practices as you say, are more or less a thing of the past now. Are some of them in use for new projects? In some sure, you can't immediately erase the influence of a decade of code and tutorials and such. But e.g. even J2EE itself in later versions got rewritten in a different style, Spring today leverages the new features and stuff like Annotations, verbose XML everything has fallen out of favor, etc.
mobjack 8y ago
Java is a bad language until your project reaches a certain scale and its structure starts becoming an advantage.
ulkesh 8y ago
It's wonderful how much you know me. Funny thing is I know many programming languages (Java, Scala, Javascript, C++, C#, and a few others I've had dealings with). I also like Java AND the JVM. The difference between you and me, is that I can admit adoring something even if it's not trendy to do so.

by mruts 8y ago

noisem4ker 8y ago

I've had to study and use my share of programming languages, from C to Haskell. Java is just one of them, and it's the one I like the most. Want to know a language undoubtedly worse than Java? Easy. Append "Script" to it.

yjftsjthsd-h 8y ago

> In fact, I'm not sure I can think of a worse language than Java. COBOL. BASIC, including VBA. Older versions of FORTRAN. All real languages used widely and in production, all far worse than Java.

a-saleh 8y ago
I for one, LOVE both BASIC and VBA :-) But maybe that is just nostalgia speaking, BASIC was my first language :)
i_am_proteus 8y ago
Not sure the Fortran dig is fair. FORTRAN77 was good for the applications it was designed for in 1978. Modern Fortran is still useful for scientific computing.
- yjftsjthsd-h 8y ago
  I would argue that even for the time early versions were not particularly ergonomic or nice to work with. And yes, I will actually be the first to defend modern Fortran; calling out older versions specifically was a very intentional choice on my part. Granted, I'm unclear on how much the newer variants are used; legacy code bases form a pretty big backlog.
- 4thaccount 8y ago
  There's a brand new "Modern Fortran" book coming out of Manning publishing that covers parallel computing. As someone who doesn't program Fortran, but has read a lot of vendor Fortran (77' and 90') and C++, I vastly prefer Fortran. No, I wouldn't use it for a standard enterprise app, but it really shines for numeric computing where it has a lot of what is required baked into the native language. It is very fast and no-nonsense.
poizan42 8y ago
Or MUMPS. Even the name is horrible. https://thedailywtf.com/articles/A_Case_of_the_MUMPS https://thedailywtf.com/articles/A_Case_of_the_MUMPS
- Fins 8y ago
  It's not that bad, for it's time, and the storage mechanism is very good for right purposes.

coldtea 8y ago

>In fact, I'm not sure I can think of a worse language than Java. That's because you're inexperienced.

mruts 8y ago
Fine. I can’t think of any other modern language that is worse than Java. And why would you think I’m inexperienced based on that view alone?
- coldtea 8y ago
  Because it is just naive cargo cult of the kind fresh programmers (and/or ever-fresh programmers) repeat. It doesn't take into account the purpose of the language, the ecosystem, the quality of the compiler, gc, et al, the evolution of the syntax and semantics, the available libraries, and so on. It's just a knee jerk reaction (following old wives tales) of the "Java is verbose", "Java is slow", "Java is this", "Java is that", only staying at the surface level, and based on 2005-era enterprise Java coding practices.
  - nitrogen 8y ago
    All of those things are still true in certain contexts. Java is verbose compared to Kotlin or Ruby. Java is slow at initial JVM launch. Many 2005-era enterprise coding practices are still in very wide use for new projects.
    - coldtea 8y ago
      >Java is verbose compared to Kotlin or Ruby. True. But Kotlin was developed with 20+ years of hindsight, and Ruby is dynamic and pays by being slow for many of its higher level features that make it less verbose. And even Java is much less verbose today, with "var" and "closures", and functional interfaces, and auto inference. The main cause of verbosity in Java code was BS J2EE fashion (throw in all kinds of Patterns to make it "enterprise"). This -- the 2005-era practices as you say, are more or less a thing of the past now. Are some of them in use for new projects? In some sure, you can't immediately erase the influence of a decade of code and tutorials and such. But e.g. even J2EE itself in later versions got rewritten in a different style, Spring today leverages the new features and stuff like Annotations, verbose XML everything has fallen out of favor, etc.

mobjack 8y ago

Java is a bad language until your project reaches a certain scale and its structure starts becoming an advantage.

ulkesh 8y ago

It's wonderful how much you know me. Funny thing is I know many programming languages (Java, Scala, Javascript, C++, C#, and a few others I've had dealings with). I also like Java AND the JVM. The difference between you and me, is that I can admit adoring something even if it's not trendy to do so.