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The JVM is not magic, neither are Java programmers magicians, but I think the reason magical terms are used to describe Java systems is that the ecosystem had l

The JVM is not magic, neither are Java programmers magicians, but I think the reason magical terms are used to describe Java systems is that the ecosystem had lots and lots of time to develop libraries and abstractions (a few of which happen to be of the right kind, read: leak just the right amount). Your typical Java programmer is well aware what it takes to implement a battle-proof connection pool, and will not attempt to implement their own. To them, adding the config stanza to enable a connection pool indeed feels like magic. Other platforms, that come with preconfigured connection pools, do not leak this to the programmer, and 80% of their users will not know what a connection pool is.

james-mcelwain 7y ago
The way I would phrase it is that the Java ecosystem is simultaneously both higher level and lower level (in terms of abstraction, not the machine) than many other platforms. The ability to swap out basically any component of a framework like Spring simply by including a different dependency or replacing a bean at runtime allows for fine grained tuning that isn't possible in many other frameworks. But this flexibility and/or modularity is enabled by a heap of pretty magical abstractions that glues everything together.
- groestl 7y ago
  > simultaneously both higher level and lower level (in terms of abstraction, not the machine) than many other platforms. I think that's a good way to characterize it.
- twic 7y ago
  The Java library developer's aesthetic has traditionally been to make things possible, rather than to make things easy. So you may have to write a lot of code or config to get something to happen, but you will have a lot of control over what happens. This is the opposite emphasis to, say, the Ruby community, which values a simple, lickable, surface interface with a large amount of opaque magic hiding behind it.

james-mcelwain 7y ago

The way I would phrase it is that the Java ecosystem is simultaneously both higher level and lower level (in terms of abstraction, not the machine) than many other platforms. The ability to swap out basically any component of a framework like Spring simply by including a different dependency or replacing a bean at runtime allows for fine grained tuning that isn't possible in many other frameworks. But this flexibility and/or modularity is enabled by a heap of pretty magical abstractions that glues everything together.

groestl 7y ago
> simultaneously both higher level and lower level (in terms of abstraction, not the machine) than many other platforms. I think that's a good way to characterize it.
twic 7y ago
The Java library developer's aesthetic has traditionally been to make things possible, rather than to make things easy. So you may have to write a lot of code or config to get something to happen, but you will have a lot of control over what happens. This is the opposite emphasis to, say, the Ruby community, which values a simple, lickable, surface interface with a large amount of opaque magic hiding behind it.