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I met a COBOL contract programmer 15 years ago. At the time he made a lot of money from it because there were few left, no new work, but maintaing old code base

I met a COBOL contract programmer 15 years ago. At the time he made a lot of money from it because there were few left, no new work, but maintaing old code bases. Java today, OTOH, is nowhere near that point yet. People still build plenty of new things in Java and it's easy to search a job site and see tons of Java jobs. The JVM is widely used and no-one will blink twice if you want to build something on it. I don't see them as comparable at all.

wpietri 7y ago
I think it's a mistake to confuse JVM languages with Java. But that aside, By "Java is the new COBOL", I'm not saying that Java today is COBOL today. I'm saying it's a dominant language for legacy apps and a lot of "enterprise" coding in shops that already have a heavy Java investment. But relatively few new companies are doing new work in pure Java, so it's definitely headed down the same road. And there are definitely plenty of companies where people will blink a lot more than twice if you propose building something in Java. That's not to say it's bad; I've written a bunch of Java for money, and may do so again. But I think it's hard to justify in a lot of environments, and correctly so.
- bpicolo 7y ago
  Netflix, Amazon, Google are all on the Java train in real capacities. There's a crap load of Java out there.
  - wpietri 7y ago
    Sure. All of those companies are over 20 years old, so it's not surprising they'd have codebases in a language that was very hot early on in their lifespans. There was a also crapload of COBOL out there for decades after new companies turned away from it. There is still a fair bit.
- cutler 7y ago
  According to angel.co there are 88 startups in London alone using Java. Whenever I attend London's Silicon Milk Roundabout bi-annual jobs fair the dominant languages are Python and Java. Java's status in the top 3 programming languages worldwide cannot be explained away by its dominant position in legacy enterprise software. What about Android, for example?
  - wpietri 7y ago
    I personally have done a startup in Java in 2004, and have written Java code for money as recently as last year. So I feel comfortable saying Java is generally a bad idea for startups. Java was the core language for Android because it started in the early 2000s, when Java was the new hotness. But it is no longer the primary Android language; that's now officially Kotlin, because the majority of developers had already switched away from Java: https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/07/kotlin-is-now-googles-preferred-language-for-android-app-development/ https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/07/kotlin-is-now-googles-pref...
    - cutler 7y ago
      I'm not disputing whether Java is a good choice for anything, just refuting your assertion that Java is the new COBOL and is mainly used in legacy enterprise software. Jobs stats on Indeed.com (corporate) and Angel.co (startups) show that's clearly not the case.
      - wpietri 7y ago
        Java is the new COBOL in that it dominates in enterprise contexts because a) it's seen as a safe choice and b) they already have a lot of Java. Yes, there are plenty of jobs in it. There were plenty of jobs in COBOL too for decades. If you have stats that suggest it's a popular language for startups relative to other languages, I look forward to seeing them. But my experience is otherwise, and it has pretty clearly been on the decline for years. You seem eager to ignore the fact that it's now a second-class language on Android, but Google Trends shows the same decline more generally: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=%2Fm%2F07sbkfb https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=%... You can contrast that with, say, Node: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=2009-01-01%202019-08-03&geo=US&q=%2Fm%2F0bbxf89 https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=2009-01-01%202... Or React, both of which show the classic increasing interest curve of the new hotness: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=2009-01-01%202019-08-03&geo=US&q=%2Fm%2F012l1vxv https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=2009-01-01%202... Or you could compare it with Ruby on Rails, which is farther along in the cycle. Formerly super exciting, it's now seeing declining interest as well: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=%2Fm%2F0505cl https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=%...

wpietri 7y ago

I think it's a mistake to confuse JVM languages with Java. But that aside, By "Java is the new COBOL", I'm not saying that Java today is COBOL today. I'm saying it's a dominant language for legacy apps and a lot of "enterprise" coding in shops that already have a heavy Java investment. But relatively few new companies are doing new work in pure Java, so it's definitely headed down the same road. And there are definitely plenty of companies where people will blink a lot more than twice if you propose building something in Java. That's not to say it's bad; I've written a bunch of Java for money, and may do so again. But I think it's hard to justify in a lot of environments, and correctly so.

bpicolo 7y ago
Netflix, Amazon, Google are all on the Java train in real capacities. There's a crap load of Java out there.
- wpietri 7y ago
  Sure. All of those companies are over 20 years old, so it's not surprising they'd have codebases in a language that was very hot early on in their lifespans. There was a also crapload of COBOL out there for decades after new companies turned away from it. There is still a fair bit.
cutler 7y ago
According to angel.co there are 88 startups in London alone using Java. Whenever I attend London's Silicon Milk Roundabout bi-annual jobs fair the dominant languages are Python and Java. Java's status in the top 3 programming languages worldwide cannot be explained away by its dominant position in legacy enterprise software. What about Android, for example?
- wpietri 7y ago
  I personally have done a startup in Java in 2004, and have written Java code for money as recently as last year. So I feel comfortable saying Java is generally a bad idea for startups. Java was the core language for Android because it started in the early 2000s, when Java was the new hotness. But it is no longer the primary Android language; that's now officially Kotlin, because the majority of developers had already switched away from Java: https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/07/kotlin-is-now-googles-preferred-language-for-android-app-development/ https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/07/kotlin-is-now-googles-pref...
  - cutler 7y ago
    I'm not disputing whether Java is a good choice for anything, just refuting your assertion that Java is the new COBOL and is mainly used in legacy enterprise software. Jobs stats on Indeed.com (corporate) and Angel.co (startups) show that's clearly not the case.
    - wpietri 7y ago
      Java is the new COBOL in that it dominates in enterprise contexts because a) it's seen as a safe choice and b) they already have a lot of Java. Yes, there are plenty of jobs in it. There were plenty of jobs in COBOL too for decades. If you have stats that suggest it's a popular language for startups relative to other languages, I look forward to seeing them. But my experience is otherwise, and it has pretty clearly been on the decline for years. You seem eager to ignore the fact that it's now a second-class language on Android, but Google Trends shows the same decline more generally: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=%2Fm%2F07sbkfb https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=%... You can contrast that with, say, Node: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=2009-01-01%202019-08-03&geo=US&q=%2Fm%2F0bbxf89 https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=2009-01-01%202... Or React, both of which show the classic increasing interest curve of the new hotness: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=2009-01-01%202019-08-03&geo=US&q=%2Fm%2F012l1vxv https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=2009-01-01%202... Or you could compare it with Ruby on Rails, which is farther along in the cycle. Formerly super exciting, it's now seeing declining interest as well: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=%2Fm%2F0505cl https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=%...