5 ms·

+1 for this. Java gets shade from the hipsters these days, but it's almost impossible to overstate what a revolution it was for software engineering.

hodgesrm 6y ago
Java had an impact similar to COBOL in the previous generation of business apps. I used to call it COBOL for the 90s. If you don't know COBOL, it was a revolution compared to programming in Assembler. It's hard to overstate how big an improvement it was for productivity.
bhaak 6y ago
Java saved me from having a C++ career. And that was the 90s C++, not the C++ of today. I dodged a bullet there.
- benibela 6y ago
  Unfortunately I learned Delphi Afterwards you could not take the other languages seriously Like comparing two strings for equaltiy, strA and strB. In Delphi, you write: strA = strB In Java: strA != null && strA.equals(strB) Delphi just did everything better
  - eitland 6y ago
    I tried to learn Delphi on an existing Delphi project. My experience was one of hunting dependencies in bookshelves, file serves, (defunct) vendor web sites and also source forge. That was the point were I grokked the immense value of Maven.
  - bhaak 6y ago
    Java was designed when C and C++ were still going strong and there was a feeling (or fear, depending on who you asked) that C++ would be as omnipresent as C was. Java tried very hard to fix the perceived errors of C++ and operator overloading was high on that list. Nowadays, we are no longer afraid of operator overloading so I kind of wonder why it hasn't found its way into modern Java.
    - benibela 6y ago
      But they fixed the wrong "errors" C++ is actually a good language. But everything that comes from C is bad.
      - bhaak 6y ago
        There's a very good language in C++ trying to get out. The problem is that different people consider different subsets of C++ as good.
        benibela 6y ago
        C++: has generics, inheritance, pointers, macros, const, function overloading, and exceptions Sun: C++ is too complicated. We need to simplify it by removing generics, pointers, macros, and const Google: C++ is too complicated. We need to simplify it by removing generics, inheritance, pointers, macros, const, function overloading, and exceptions Mozilla: C++ is too complicated. We need to simplify it by removing inheritance, function overloading and exceptions
        bhaak 6y ago
        You are ignoring that every one of that languages you're describing here have not only removed stuff but also implemented stuff differently. Also, Sun said "manual memory management is dangerous" and history proved them right (granted, they were not the first to say so). Java also proved that a VM based language can be competitive performancewise with a compiled language. It influenced the design of PL down the lines. Go, well I'm not the biggest fan of its design philosophy but I'm still would have chosen Go over C++ in the 90s if both were available back then. Rust goes well beyond anything C++ has done. C++ failed in replacing C but Rust might be able to pull that off. Considering that we still have lots of the buffer overflows in 2021 I'd say it's about time. > C++: has generics, inheritance, pointers, macros, const, function overloading, and exceptions Pointers. Plural. That's a good point. C++ likes pointers, so much it has raw pointers, references, std::auto_ptr, std::unique_ptr and std::shared_ptr. C++ also has a shitton of other functionality without a coherent design. In that regard, even C is better. They also almost never remove anything. That std::auto_ptr is up for removal just shows how bad it was and that it shouldn't have been added in the first place.
AnimalMuppet 6y ago
Java brought two things to the table compared to C++: garbage collection, and an enormous library. I don't think that garbage collection, by itself, was a 10x change. For it to be so, programmers would have to be spending 90% of their effort on freeing memory. Don't get me wrong, garbage collection is a big win when you can use it, but I don't think it's quite that big of a win. The library... that might almost be 10x, by itself, because of everything that you don't have to write. The combination of that plus garbage collection gave Java quite a kick compared to C++.
- Ma8ee 6y ago
  Not freeing memory, but tracking down memory leaks. We rarely even hear that term nowadays, but most large commercial programs used to have them.
  - loopz 6y ago
    Memory leak is a thing on JVM too. Tends to reoccur at times. Java brought call stack dumps, security model and alot of standardisation across orgs.
    - blablabla123 6y ago
      Or you just reference things all the way through your program, so it's possible in every language. Still, for the memory management related kind in C++ there are tools like valgrind.
- thow-01187 6y ago
  +another huge benefit - Jar files and class files made the IDEs possible. Studying at the university, moving from Visual Studio/C to Eclipse/Java was a wtf-how-is-that-even-possible moment.
- stickfigure 6y ago
  In the 90s I used to spend DAYS hunting down memory issues (corruption, leaks, crashes) in C++ code. Your whole schedule could slip by weeks because of one hard to reproduce issue. I haven't seen that kind of problem in a long time.

hodgesrm 6y ago

Java had an impact similar to COBOL in the previous generation of business apps. I used to call it COBOL for the 90s. If you don't know COBOL, it was a revolution compared to programming in Assembler. It's hard to overstate how big an improvement it was for productivity.

bhaak 6y ago

Java saved me from having a C++ career. And that was the 90s C++, not the C++ of today. I dodged a bullet there.

benibela 6y ago
Unfortunately I learned Delphi Afterwards you could not take the other languages seriously Like comparing two strings for equaltiy, strA and strB. In Delphi, you write: strA = strB In Java: strA != null && strA.equals(strB) Delphi just did everything better
- eitland 6y ago
  I tried to learn Delphi on an existing Delphi project. My experience was one of hunting dependencies in bookshelves, file serves, (defunct) vendor web sites and also source forge. That was the point were I grokked the immense value of Maven.
- bhaak 6y ago
  Java was designed when C and C++ were still going strong and there was a feeling (or fear, depending on who you asked) that C++ would be as omnipresent as C was. Java tried very hard to fix the perceived errors of C++ and operator overloading was high on that list. Nowadays, we are no longer afraid of operator overloading so I kind of wonder why it hasn't found its way into modern Java.
  - benibela 6y ago
    But they fixed the wrong "errors" C++ is actually a good language. But everything that comes from C is bad.
    - bhaak 6y ago
      There's a very good language in C++ trying to get out. The problem is that different people consider different subsets of C++ as good.
      - benibela 6y ago
        C++: has generics, inheritance, pointers, macros, const, function overloading, and exceptions Sun: C++ is too complicated. We need to simplify it by removing generics, pointers, macros, and const Google: C++ is too complicated. We need to simplify it by removing generics, inheritance, pointers, macros, const, function overloading, and exceptions Mozilla: C++ is too complicated. We need to simplify it by removing inheritance, function overloading and exceptions
        bhaak 6y ago
        You are ignoring that every one of that languages you're describing here have not only removed stuff but also implemented stuff differently. Also, Sun said "manual memory management is dangerous" and history proved them right (granted, they were not the first to say so). Java also proved that a VM based language can be competitive performancewise with a compiled language. It influenced the design of PL down the lines. Go, well I'm not the biggest fan of its design philosophy but I'm still would have chosen Go over C++ in the 90s if both were available back then. Rust goes well beyond anything C++ has done. C++ failed in replacing C but Rust might be able to pull that off. Considering that we still have lots of the buffer overflows in 2021 I'd say it's about time. > C++: has generics, inheritance, pointers, macros, const, function overloading, and exceptions Pointers. Plural. That's a good point. C++ likes pointers, so much it has raw pointers, references, std::auto_ptr, std::unique_ptr and std::shared_ptr. C++ also has a shitton of other functionality without a coherent design. In that regard, even C is better. They also almost never remove anything. That std::auto_ptr is up for removal just shows how bad it was and that it shouldn't have been added in the first place.

AnimalMuppet 6y ago

Java brought two things to the table compared to C++: garbage collection, and an enormous library. I don't think that garbage collection, by itself, was a 10x change. For it to be so, programmers would have to be spending 90% of their effort on freeing memory. Don't get me wrong, garbage collection is a big win when you can use it, but I don't think it's quite that big of a win. The library... that might almost be 10x, by itself, because of everything that you don't have to write. The combination of that plus garbage collection gave Java quite a kick compared to C++.

Ma8ee 6y ago
Not freeing memory, but tracking down memory leaks. We rarely even hear that term nowadays, but most large commercial programs used to have them.
- loopz 6y ago
  Memory leak is a thing on JVM too. Tends to reoccur at times. Java brought call stack dumps, security model and alot of standardisation across orgs.
  - blablabla123 6y ago
    Or you just reference things all the way through your program, so it's possible in every language. Still, for the memory management related kind in C++ there are tools like valgrind.
thow-01187 6y ago
+another huge benefit - Jar files and class files made the IDEs possible. Studying at the university, moving from Visual Studio/C to Eclipse/Java was a wtf-how-is-that-even-possible moment.
stickfigure 6y ago
In the 90s I used to spend DAYS hunting down memory issues (corruption, leaks, crashes) in C++ code. Your whole schedule could slip by weeks because of one hard to reproduce issue. I haven't seen that kind of problem in a long time.