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IMHO, Java is not dead, but it's found its home: the enterprise. Java has a ton of overhead in its syntax and structure: just saying "Hello world" takes like 1
by sabat 19y ago
IMHO, Java is not dead, but it's found its home: the enterprise.
Java has a ton of overhead in its syntax and structure: just saying "Hello world" takes like 10 lines.
In an enterprise, where you have so many developers who will work on the same codebase, then a nanny-language like Java is appropriate. You never know who might take advantage of a lack of structure and do something Really Stupid[tm] that you won't find out about until much later.
But for hacking? YMMV but in my experience, the only hackers who need Java are the ones who cannot exist without a lot of predefined structure.
- umjames 19y agoYou're pretty much right. The problems really start when you work in an enterprise but you are on a very small team (no greater than 2, but almost always just me), and your boss wants it done in Java for no real good reason. Another problem is that using most Java frameworks is not as simple as including a JAR in the classpath. They require different amounts of config files and boilerplate start up code. The ultimate problem is that when you've had a taste of metaprogramming, real closures, or some other feature that Java lacks, you find it extremely irritating to lose that power just so that you can say you wrote it in Java. PS. Limewire is a client Java app (or at least loads and looks like one).
- sabat 19y agoRe-reading my post, I noticed that someone could say this: "the only hackers who need Java are the ones who cannot exist without a lot of predefined structure" about Rails as well. The difference is that Rails does not force structure on you. It just makes it super-convenient to use it. Java, in my experience, seems more heavy-handed.