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> but I think it'll slowly move the way of COBOL and FORTRAN That could be true of any language that's achieved great popularity, but in 2022 Java is the langu

by pron 4y ago

> but I think it'll slowly move the way of COBOL and FORTRAN That could be true of any language that's achieved great popularity, but in 2022 Java is the language that dominates server-side development (by plurality, not majority), it is a technological leader in areas of compilation, garbage collection, and low-overhead in-production profiling, no other single language looks posed to seriously challenges Java's dominant position on the server (as PHP seemed for a while), and, at 27, it is more popular than COBOL was in its (rather short) heyday. But it is true that Java is among a select set of languages (alongside Python, JavaScript, and C) that have managed to achieve a level of success sufficient to become "a COBOL" or "a Fortran" someday.

amanaplanacanal 4y ago
Aren't most of those benefits from the JVM rather than Java itself?
- pron 4y ago
  First of all, what most people call "the JVM" is really called Java. Java = libraries + VM + tools + language. Of the ~8 MLOC in the JDK, the Java language compiler and Javadoc make up around 200KLOC; the VM makes up about 1.5M. What is sometimes colloquially known as "the JVM" is really everything except the language, of which the actual JVM is pretty small. Second, while the JDK is pretty modular (e.g. you can use the runtime and tools but not the frontend compiler as "JVM languages" do), we design every feature by looking at the platform as a whole. E.g. the relatively new records feature is implemented in the language, libraries, and VM. That's why some newer Java platform languages have more baggage than the Java language, because their features are not harmonious with the direction of the libraries and VM (e.g. Kotlin's coroutines and data classes). Finally, it is true that back in the '90s, James Gosling set out Java's strategy to put most innovation in the runtime and keep the language very conservative (he called it "a wolf in sheep's clothing"), and we follow that strategy to this day, because it's turned out to be very successful. While there are lots of programmers who want more adventurous, feature-rich languages -- and many of them hang out here -- the vast majority of programmers don't. Many more people complain that the Java language is changing too quickly than changing too slowly. So it is thanks to the conservative language that the platform is so popular, which allows us to have the resources to innovate in the runtime. So while <10% of people using Java do so with another language (no single alternative language has gained more than 5% of the platform's ecosystem) -- and we're happy we can accommodate everyone -- the conservative language is a necessary component of making the runtime state-of-the-art. A combination of an innovative runtime and a conservative platform is what most people want, and that combination is the main benefit.
mwcampbell 4y ago
> no other single language looks posed to seriously challenges Java's dominant position on the server (as PHP seemed for a while) What do you think about JavaScript in this context? JavaScript seems at least as popular among today's full-stack web developers as PHP was 15-20 years ago. V8 might not be as optimal a runtime environment for servers as HotSpot, but that won't necessarily diminish the language's popularity.
- pron 4y ago
  JavaScript is very popular overall, possibly more than Java, and it is, without a doubt, the dominant client-side language, but its prospects on the server are currently not as rosy as they were five years ago. It's never materialised as a solid, responsible choice for big, important, server-side applications, and it's lost the coolness factor it had when Node was young. The market is much more fragmented than it was in, say, 2004, and so Java is not likely to regain its anomalous overwhelming dominance it had back then anytime soon, but no other language seems posed to do that, either.

by pron 4y ago

amanaplanacanal 4y ago

Aren't most of those benefits from the JVM rather than Java itself?

pron 4y ago
First of all, what most people call "the JVM" is really called Java. Java = libraries + VM + tools + language. Of the ~8 MLOC in the JDK, the Java language compiler and Javadoc make up around 200KLOC; the VM makes up about 1.5M. What is sometimes colloquially known as "the JVM" is really everything except the language, of which the actual JVM is pretty small. Second, while the JDK is pretty modular (e.g. you can use the runtime and tools but not the frontend compiler as "JVM languages" do), we design every feature by looking at the platform as a whole. E.g. the relatively new records feature is implemented in the language, libraries, and VM. That's why some newer Java platform languages have more baggage than the Java language, because their features are not harmonious with the direction of the libraries and VM (e.g. Kotlin's coroutines and data classes). Finally, it is true that back in the '90s, James Gosling set out Java's strategy to put most innovation in the runtime and keep the language very conservative (he called it "a wolf in sheep's clothing"), and we follow that strategy to this day, because it's turned out to be very successful. While there are lots of programmers who want more adventurous, feature-rich languages -- and many of them hang out here -- the vast majority of programmers don't. Many more people complain that the Java language is changing too quickly than changing too slowly. So it is thanks to the conservative language that the platform is so popular, which allows us to have the resources to innovate in the runtime. So while <10% of people using Java do so with another language (no single alternative language has gained more than 5% of the platform's ecosystem) -- and we're happy we can accommodate everyone -- the conservative language is a necessary component of making the runtime state-of-the-art. A combination of an innovative runtime and a conservative platform is what most people want, and that combination is the main benefit.

mwcampbell 4y ago

> no other single language looks posed to seriously challenges Java's dominant position on the server (as PHP seemed for a while) What do you think about JavaScript in this context? JavaScript seems at least as popular among today's full-stack web developers as PHP was 15-20 years ago. V8 might not be as optimal a runtime environment for servers as HotSpot, but that won't necessarily diminish the language's popularity.

pron 4y ago
JavaScript is very popular overall, possibly more than Java, and it is, without a doubt, the dominant client-side language, but its prospects on the server are currently not as rosy as they were five years ago. It's never materialised as a solid, responsible choice for big, important, server-side applications, and it's lost the coolness factor it had when Node was young. The market is much more fragmented than it was in, say, 2004, and so Java is not likely to regain its anomalous overwhelming dominance it had back then anytime soon, but no other language seems posed to do that, either.