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Ask HN: Why do startups avoid Java?

51 points by gkresic 4y ago

Based on: https://www.workatastartup.com/companies?role=eng&role_type=be

nottorp 4y ago
What are the legal implications of using Java / the JVM in a commercial project these days? We're talking about Oracle here.
martypitt 4y ago
We've built a huge stack in it. (Well, Kotlin). Love it, and hiring is easy.
- nicoburns 4y ago
  I feel like if you're using Kotlin, then you count as avoiding Java for the purposes of this discussion.
  - gkresic 4y ago
    OP here. Actually, no, I mistitled the question, should have included Kotlin. I do consider Java and Kotlin to be part of the same ecosystem that is being avoided.
    - origin_path 4y ago
      Kind weird perception. I did a startup 6 years ago that was Kotlin all the way.
PaulHoule 4y ago
I worked for 2 that used it.
Zachary-_- 4y ago
Speed. The majority of the talent pool prefers newer tools and frameworks and these are for the most part Javascript based. So you're able to implement faster, hire faster, pivot quicker.
jmartin2683 4y ago
Performance, mostly. It’s in the middle. Why do anything in the middle?
- vanillax 4y ago
  This isnt true. Java can be extremely high performing. Nasdaq runs on java.
  - PaulHoule 4y ago
    In Java you can write correct multithreaded code that is highly scalable if you use the basic primitives and avoid snake oil like parallel streams, fork/join, etc. People wish you could write reliable and scalable parallel code with a small set of primitives but it just isn't true.
  - rockwotj 4y ago
    Agreed. I wish people didn't assume GC means slow - Java has the most sophisticated GC out there. There are points when not being able to stack allocate objects hurts performance, but JVM performance is good. I've worked one two database systems written in JVM tech and the performance was good.
  - jmartin2683 4y ago
    Relative to what, though? It’s a garbage collected language running on a virtual machine. At the end of the day, if I want high level ergonomics I’ll use Python and if I want performance I’ll use C. If I want both at the same time I’ll use rust. I don’t see where Java fits in this outside of some case where I’m forced to use it due to some library requirement or deployment constraint.
cultofmetatron 4y ago
Java was a mediocre language made primarily to be optimized for midsized companies and aimed to be learnable by mid level engineers. There's a lot of boilerplate and ceremony to do even basic things and a type system that takes time to learn while not providing much benefit. I've heard its gotten better in recent years but why bother? - you want the jvm libraries? kotlin is a much cleaner syntax that also runs on android and can be compiled to js. - need speed? rust is hot and has a lot of mindshare going into it as we speak. - Need cheap devs you can rotate out on your pivot cycle till you land on a viable business model? javascript lets you build your whole stack in the same language with a large pool of junior to senior talent. - need websocket or realtime? elixir wins the day there. - ml? you night have a contender here. jvm based projects like spark and hadoop use the jvm. extensively. That said, scala seems more widely used in production there but its not a field I'm super close to so I could be mistaken. I guess what I'm trying to say is that java isn't particularly bad but it doesn't have an edge either. there's nothing compelling in it thats going to give you an edge in delivering value to the users.
- mcv 4y ago
  I thought Python was the language of choice for ML. Still, having one language that's good at all of these does sound attractive. The excessive boilerplate is annoying, though.
  - PaulHoule 4y ago
    I wrote this thing using Python years ago https://ontology2.com/essays/ClassifyingHackerNewsArticles/ https://ontology2.com/essays/ClassifyingHackerNewsArticles/ I am thinking of firming it up to make something general for long-term use against RSS feeds. I have a blast writing websockets-based applications w/ asyncio in Python for my own personal use but I'd be loathe to put one of those where they get used heavily. On the other hand I have a lot of faith in the ability of Java-based servers that take heavy hits because I've done it for years. That logistic regression classifier would be easy to port to Java but if I used Python it would be easy to add new algorithms, particularly I want to add a dimension reducer (papers I read suggest it would cut the error rate in half) and a clustering engine, with scikit-learn I get a good choice of high-performance and tested algos. On the other hand, I find it easy to write state-machine code, parsers and such in Java that chew efficiently through large volumes of text.
alvis 4y ago
A better question maybe. What is the edge of using java over others? 20 years back it was about cross platform support, but which language is not cross platform nowadays?
- wisnoskij 4y ago
  The problem with java is it needs a correctly installed, configured, and versions JVM installed to run the code. All the other languages will just spit out a exe that will just run if you click it. Java is the least cross platform language in existence.
  - chillfox 4y ago
    Eh, a new hot language typically needs llvm to be available on a platform before it can spit out a binary for it. So it’s really just a matter of reach.
  - kaba0 4y ago
    There is not even a JRE anymore - the standard way to package java apps is to bundle them with a specifically optimized JRE for your app, for exactly this reason. Also, it’s not like people just click on exes anymore, desktop apps are a tiny niche.
  - origin_path 4y ago
    How is that different to Python, Ruby, Node, etc? There is at least jlink which creates standalone app directories, and native-image, which makes AOT compiled native (standalone) binaries.
  - za3faran 4y ago
    > Java is the least cross platform language in existence. That's extremely hyperbolic. Try writing a cross OS program in C or C++ and tell me how it goes. #ifdefs everywhere. Running a Java program through maven or gradle is very straight forward. Versioning works really well. Not to mention the excellent cross platform handling implementations built into the JVM.
tyleo 4y ago
At this point I feel like C# exists in pretty much the same space but solves the same problems better. Java doesn’t seem to solve a unique problem any more or solve common problems better than other languages.
- bob1029 4y ago
  The only thing I am missing in C#/.NET is more GC options. Java lets you DIY, or completely turn it off. For everything else, I would have a hard time making an argument against C#.
  - rolenthedeep 4y ago
    You can do some weird stuff to GC in C#. I haven't looked at it in several years, but I'm pretty sure there's a way to suspend GC at runtime. There's definitely a mechanism to force immediate GC, and functions to exempt an object from GC. C# is a lot more flexible than people give it credit for, I've seen some absolutely amazing things built this way. Of course, manipulating C# in unexpected ways is an absolute nightmare, but with enough determination you can do about anything
    - TideAd 4y ago
      I believe you can be notified when a collection is imminent. I saw a service use that to remove instances from the load balancer before that happened - super useful for higher-percentile latencies.
      - bob1029 4y ago
        I looked into all of this, and still have a use case where it doesn't quite work out as well as it could with Java. I can almost make it work with some pretty aggressive hackarounds, such as subdividing my service into multiple, smaller processes that each operate w/ workstation GC mode. GC runs pretty fast when object count is reasonable. Something like 1 process per latency-sensitive client is where I am at with .NET right now.
- 4y ago
rlawson 4y ago
I worked at a startup that used it. Great performance, easy to hire for, library for everything. This was 5 years ago so the .net core story wasn't as good then.
rjsw 4y ago
I have used it in a startup.
RamblingCTO 4y ago
We're using it (ok, but converted a big bunch of it to kotlin haha). Depends on the sector I guess.
- cies 4y ago
  Same boat. Not sure I'd pick in case we could start over. Quite happy it was picked over, say, PHP, JS/Node, Python...
  - RamblingCTO 4y ago
    Yeah, same! I kind of favor golang, but as we're building a fintech SaaS I'm not sure I would want to write that in golang without the nifty OOP/functional stuff in Kotlin.
xyzzy4747 4y ago
You can do everything better in either TypeScript (for cognitively simple things) or Rust (for complex things that need to work correctly and be fast).
- rockwotj 4y ago
  There is certainly cases where Java is better than Rust (gasp I said it!) Purely from a productivity standpoint, Java is faster to write than Rust (you don't have to think about memory lifetimes and compile times are faster, I think IDEs for Java are better than Rust LSP), and you only need to optimize hot codepaths, not your whole program. Dynamic dispatch and GC give you a lower ceiling, but in the majority of systems you don't need that last bit of performance.
  - xyzzy4747 4y ago
    But those are instances where you can use TypeScript/node.js which is less verbose than Java and has better native async support. Also easier to write tests for. Also VSCode with Rust Analyzer works decently as an IDE.
    - rockwotj 4y ago
      Certainly not knocking rust analyzer – it's great! I think the missing piece of node versus Java is Java has first class support for threading, so I guess it depends if your system is IO or CPU bound, but for CPU bound systems, Java is certainly better than node. My naive understanding of Java's Jit and nodes jit is that Java's has more optimizations for CPU bound workloads, where a lot of v8s optimizations have gone into faster parsing and initial loading because that's an important use case for the web compared to Java which is mostly optimizing for the server use case at this point.
      - xyzzy4747 4y ago
        If it was CPU bound and multi-threaded then wouldn’t Rust be a lot better? Since it has no runtime or garbage collection, in addition to having good built-in thread safety. Hence my original point.
P_I_Staker 4y ago
cus it sux
bombcar 4y ago
Because startups are negotiating with employees for sub-standard pay, usually. So you need to do things to convince the hotshots to come work for you, and Java is boring corporate coding, it's not the latest hotshit like Rust is. And conversely, they're also negotiating with VCs for funding, and customers. Being able to describe the hotshot language helps differentiate as to why "this startup will make it work".
- PaulHoule 4y ago
  I dunno, Java 17 is like "ML, the good parts" Particularly in JDK 19 with the preview flags, it is a blast using pattern matching and other new features to write compilers and similar things. It's not like Scala which compiles line noise just fine.
binkHN 4y ago
Because it’s not “cool” anymore and it was left to languish for many years? In addition, many, and better, languages have come out since it was cool. The de facto replacement for Java is Kotlin, or at least it was until Oracle started caring about it again.
falcolas 4y ago
If a startup avoids Java, it’s because the first few coders don’t use Java. That’s it. I’ve seen startups use almost every language under the sun, including the boring ones like Java, C, and PHP.
- cies 4y ago
  warning opinion ahead... C boring? Never a dull moment with C. PHP has a whole sub-reddit devoted to the fun that can be had with it https://www.reddit.com/r/lolphp/ https://www.reddit.com/r/lolphp/ Java, I do consider boring. But in a good sense. :)
- bborud 4y ago
  This is the most boring possibility so it is probably the correct guess :-)
- attractivechaos 4y ago
  Yep. The majority of startups in biotech use python mainly because it is much easier to find python programmers. Many of them have messy code base. They could probably do much better with Java IMHO.
Conan_Kudo 4y ago
IMO, the biggest reason is how broken the Java ecosystem is. Java-the-language is mostly okay, Java-the-toolchain (JVM) is pretty great, but Maven/Gradle/etc. are awful. Java is one of the few ecosystems that provides a software distribution ecosystem that doesn't allow distribution of sources alongside binaries. Additionally, it is a lot more common for Java dependencies to be a game of Jenga. Take for example, Gradle. Gradle literally cannot be built from source[1] because it relies on a binary cache of dependencies held by Gradle to build Gradle. There are many other examples of this. As a consequence, the Java ecosystem has become a security and maintenance nightmare that other ecosystems simply aren't. As bad as Nodejs is, it doesn't do this. As difficult as .NET has been, the dependency hygiene is better there. As annoying as Go and Rust are, they provide better guarantees in their ecosystems than Java does. While Python and Ruby are "slower" than Java, they both make it up in developer productivity and transparent, well-reasoned tooling compared to Java. [1]: https://twitter.com/decathorpe/status/1250048390228041729 https://twitter.com/decathorpe/status/1250048390228041729
- darklion 4y ago
  > As difficult as .NET has been Can you elaborate on the difficulty of .NET? (Purely curious!)
- fn1 4y ago
  > Java is one of the few ecosystems that provides a software distribution ecosystem that doesn't allow distribution of sources alongside binaries. This is wrong, source distribution is a standard in maven. > Gradle literally cannot be built from source[1] because it relies on a binary cache of dependencies held by Gradle to build Gradle. This is wrong as well as pointed out in the thread. > As a consequence, the Java ecosystem has become a security and maintenance nightmare that other ecosystems simply aren't. As bad as Nodejs is, it doesn't do this. This is almost hilarious. I'm working at a company at the moment guiding security updates for java and node.js backends. The java backends are not an issue. The node.js backends are almost impossible to upgrade, the javascript-frontends are even closer to impossibility.
- cs02rm0 4y ago
  As a Java developer, sort of, who uses Maven (not Gradle) but spends more time fixing UI stuff (because that's where everything breaks), I don't recognise this at all. I can't say I'm a Maven cheerleader but I find nodejs, sorry npm, with webpack, or yarn, babel, gulp, or... to be a confusing soup of incompatibility. Most of which moves on so quickly that whatever works this week is dead next week.
bin_bash 4y ago
Among many reasons I think one is that it has a poor amount of open libraries/frameworks when you stack it up against other languages. The culture is much more DIY so there isn't a lot to help you get started with a new application. I've never been a Java dev, but as I understand the package manager story is/was really bad. I've always wondered if that's part of the reason why you see so few open source efforts compared to other languages.
- fn1 4y ago
  This is dead-wrong. Java has excellent package management and there is a giant ecosystem and excellent libraries for almost everything you can think of.
  - rockwotj 4y ago
    Agreed one of the reasons my company picked the JVM ecosystem is the pethora of excellent libraries for almost anything
- KingOfCoders 4y ago
  When I was a Java dev I never had a problem with package management (except everyone bundling Log4J with different version dependencies). When I've used Scala, package management was hell. When I've used Node, there were a million warnings about the dependencies of my dependencies whenever I installed something. Upgrading often broke things contrary to Java. Plus many dependencies went dead over night. When I've used JS libraries in TS, many integrations/adaptors where half baked and underdocumented. I'd say the best dependency management I've used is from Rust, but Java was no problem, even with Maven. The ecosystem might have changed since I've left, but there were many well maintained libraries and frameworks for Java, Apache, Spring and many more. What Java lacked were some higher level frameworks back than, E.g. ready to use payment frameworks (you had to use lower level frameworks like E.g. what Stripe supplied as a library).
- rlawson 4y ago
  I have to disagree here. For all it's faults there is a very robust ecosystem of libraries to choose from.
0xcde4c3db 4y ago
Java has its technical issues, but for a startup its biggest liability is that its vibe is the polar opposite of how startups want to see themselves and be seen by others. It's reliable, stodgy, boring, conventional. How are you going to convince people that your project is "disruptive" if you aren't willing to embrace a younger, edgier tech stack?
- rlawson 4y ago
  This is the best explanation I have seen.
- fn1 4y ago
  > How are you going to convince people that your project is "disruptive" if you aren't willing to embrace a younger, edgier tech stack? Easy: Use Kotlin, which is extremely hip and compiles to the JVM. You can use the JVM then, and mix in java-support should you need it.
- matwood 4y ago
  > How are you going to convince people that your project is "disruptive" if you aren't willing to embrace a younger, edgier tech stack? Deliver great software that solves a problem that people will pay you for?
  - orev 4y ago
    The people being convinced in this scenario are VCs, not customers, and the point is that VCs want to hear how your tech stack is going to morph into the second coming of crypto so they can get a huge exit. It has nothing to do with actually getting customers.
- RichardCA 4y ago
  From a Devops perspective, I think people are accustomed to staring at a screenful of yaml or json output when something goes wrong, but not a screenful of XML. But at the sams time, a lot of places still use Jenkins, which is now the mature, legacy product. If you've been in the industry for more than a decade, this comes across as ironic, but no one knows what the next thing will be, that will finally put yaml in the rear-view mirror where it belongs.
fn1 4y ago
1. Because they confuse Java with the standard hibernate/springboot backends that are used everywhere in the industry. Hibernate/springboot is the reason why there are so many monoliths out there that are almost impossible to refactor. It's not Javas fault, it's Springs fault. 2. They believe Java is slow, but fail to realize that the JVM has actually one of the most optimized runtimes under the sun and can be fast than (unoptimized) C in many cases. Long story short: Because they have no clue about Java and follow advice without researching it first.
me_bx 4y ago
Very subjective reasons from one or two decades ago - possibly outdated now: * lack of user-friendly UIs in the end product * super frustrating *NullPointerException* showed to confused users in (almost) all java programs they get close to - despite java enthusiasts assuring that good programs should not feature that. * annoying frequent update popup shown to end users, with bloated process pushing to install other unrelated stuff * creating a super tiny dependency program in java results in a hundreds-megabytes distributable because (??) * heavy and bloated IDEs * confusing JRE / JDK required installs * licensing confusion once Oracle made Oracle Java SE paid * supposed to be multi-platform but tricky to make it work well on some versions of linux (painful memories using pentaho or gephi, finding the right file where to set-Xms<memory> -Xmx<memory> flags after a crash)
- kaba0 4y ago
  These were outdated even in the 2000s.
goalieca 4y ago
Java comes with a ton of unneeded complexity compared to many languages. What is one line of python code to have client tls certs becomes an enterprise exercise in implementing trust stores by extending complex interfaces.
- kaba0 4y ago
  These are frameworks’ properties, not the respective languages’
revskill 4y ago
Because Java doesn't allow multiple inheritance.
- kaba0 4y ago
  I have literally never ever missed that. Interfaces (especially with default implementations) are much better.
satya71 4y ago
Java is great fit for large teams, but personally feels less productive than Python or JS. Startups do start with small teams. The Java overhead doesn’t make sense.
- rockwotj 4y ago
  Very much disagree. Your argument seems like a static typing vs not and unless you're writing a small trivial thing, having types very quickly bear fruit. Also most of the good code I read these days are data oriented programs (which is largely inspired by functional programming and see rules 5 here http://users.ece.utexas.edu/~adnan/pike.html http://users.ece.utexas.edu/~adnan/pike.html) and types are very important to get the transformations correct in these systems.
  - satya71 4y ago
    Both Python and JS have static typing. Edit: remove unnecessary snark
    - rockwotj 4y ago
      Strong typing maybe? Depends on what you define these terms to be. For me. Static typing is a compiler that verifies your types are correct. Neither Python nor JavaScript has this. Python allows for type annotations, which is very different. It has no (builtin) enforcement. JavaScript has no type pins whatsoever, TypeScript does. There is a proposal to add types to JavaScript but that's not approved AFAIK
      - satya71 4y ago
        Right, when I said JS with static typing, I meant TypeScript. Python has type checkers, see mypy and pyright, and I use them regularly. Most bugs that could be found by static type checker no longer make it into test or production for me.
KingOfCoders 4y ago
Out of fashion. But I've worked in two startups, one sold for $600M and one sold for $200M and both were Java based (The startup I co-founded used Scala (never again ;-) on the JVM eco system and was also successfully sold, though for less than $200M) Technologies come and go (and sometimes come back like Python). When I started Java in the 90s it was replacing often Perl on the server, as the first apps were writen by Unix admins who used Perl, which went out of fashion.
soggybutter 4y ago
Java has a bad reputation for being bloated and/or slow. I find Java and Go to be fairly similar (both GC'd, both fairly high performance, both statically typed), and yet Go has a reputation for being compact and fast. Java isn't particularly fun or thrilling to write. If you're a founding CTO or a founding team of engineers, of course you're going to choose something more "interesting" for a greenfield project. Java isn't as quick and dirty as other languages. I think this almost fully explains the prevalence of node, because after being stuck in the node ecosystem for two years, I truly can't imagine why anyone would choose to build anything substantial in node.
- kaba0 4y ago
  The funny thing is that Go is more verbose than Java, while this is never mocked in Go.
  - alphabettsy 4y ago
    More verbose but easier to read and reason about in my opinion. A trade-off I’ll happily make.
    - kaba0 4y ago
      I don’t know, Java is a more expressive language which allows for more abstractions. This can be abused, but I think Java does strike a good balance here. You can express something like the Stream API (which is imo much more readable than deeply nested loops), while most of your code will still be ordinary method calls on objects. There certainly is an enterprise style of Java, but that is not inherent in the language, and modern Java really tries to grow away from it.
leros 4y ago
I think a big part of it is cultural. Java is a great language with tons of supporting frameworks, build systems, etc. But it's mostly geared towards larger enterprise companies. For a startup that is trying to be quick and nimble to get started, it doesn't attract the right type of talent or workflows. It can definitely be used for a startup and some do, but the hacker-y startup devs tends to lean towards other solutions.
deeteecee 4y ago
I can work much faster on Python than Java and I know both pretty well. I'm not aiming for scalability in the initial stages of my imaginary startup. That being said, it wouldn't be the worst thing for me to start with Java
nunez 4y ago
Personally I find it much much MUCH easier to bootstrap a project with Python, Go or even JavaScript than Java, especially when third-party libraries are involved. (I hate dealing with Maven or Gradle.) Kotlin and Scala are different from what I understand. Also, from what I can gather, most developers entering the industry come with JavaScript and Python experience. So there's that to consider.
taylodl 4y ago
What's the point of a JVM when your server environment is using the x86 instruction set and running Linux? The world today is very different from the world of the early 90's when Java was being developed. You want garbage collection, high performance, a vibrant ecosystem, and good build and distribution tools? Then you want Go. As many others in this thread have said, using a newer (Go is 10 years old) stack is appealing to VC's, and the hotshot programmers you're trying to attract and trade salary for stock options. This is the best strategy. If you really need to use the JVM for some reason then consider using another language on top of it such as Kotlin or Clojure. In 2022 saying your hot new startup is using Java is pretty much equivalent to saying you're using Cobol. Don't be surprised if it doesn't generate much interest from investors or developers.
- kaba0 4y ago
  Go’s GC is a generation behind Java’s, and while value types can alleviate the need of a good GC to a degree, long-living server applications do predominantly have very varying object lifetimes, so a GC is non-negotiable — Java usually has better performance in these use cases (it is not an accident that huge servers with terabytes of RAM running core internet services most often use Java, like Alibaba, AWS, many Google servers). Also, you sure know that Java spends most of its time executing native machine code for the architecture at hand, so your first paragraph is meaningless. On top, java’s ecosystem is much bigger than Go’s, and it has much better observability tools to monitor even prod instances.
trgn 4y ago
Because java.com looks like a scam website doesn't actually let you download latest java.
- kaba0 4y ago
  Have you seen it recently? Also, there is dev.java as well. And you are mostly supposed to download the JDK from the package manager of your choice where it is simply just `$PACK_MGR install openjdk`
ocius 4y ago
Python is simpler than Java. This might not be a very important factor in software engineering of large products, but it is very important for prototyping. Also, a lot of research in ML is done in Python, and there are quite a lot of startups doing ML, so Python is a natural choice. Same for data science.
- angryasian 4y ago
  Simpler is very subjective. Java is a good language for large enterprises is because its so standardized. Almost anyone at various levels can pretty much pick up and start contributing. Python, has so much syntactical sugar that it can get really messy.
- kaba0 4y ago
  Is it? Sure, some basic code probably is. But there is much more magic happening in Python than in Java, even with Spring’s dynamic class creation and whatnot.
ryandvm 4y ago
This is harsh, but as someone that has done a lot of enterprise Java development, the only reason to avoid Java is the developers. Specifically, the enterprise priests of Spring. Java is fine language and the JVM is a great runtime, but unfortunately the language itself is like a bug zapper light for graybeard enterprise devs who are not so much "Java developers" as they are "Spring engineers" (though they often refer to themselves as architects). They usually have a flair for overly complex abstraction and an encyclopedic knowledge of a couple decades worth of Spring spells, er, annotations. They typically don't build as much as they just hook shit together with Spring. Every solution is always, "oh just use yadda yadda Spring annotation/plugin." Sometimes it works, often you end up spending the day learning about yet another convoluted hunk of shit that your project just absorbed. Every Spring project turns into a myriad of black boxes where everything happens everywhere else and you're always just a few plugins short of having what you need. For enterprises this works... okay. They're big and they have a lot of money, so they usually prefer slow, complex, and consistent over rapid development dice rolls. For startups, a seasoned Java enterprise dev is like a rat. If you let one get in the door you're going to be dealing with a fucking mess in no time.
- angryasian 4y ago
  >They typically don't build as much as they just hook shit together with Spring. >They're big and they have a lot of money, so they usually prefer slow, complex, and consistent over rapid development dice rolls. These two statements seem contradictory to me. The entire point of using Spring is to be able to not worry about the cumbersome and gain efficiencies in development. Spring is no different than rails, a framework thats highly regarded for fast development
  - MattPalmer1086 4y ago
    I'm sure it is highly regarded... My own (admittedly limited) experience is it is a hell hole of abstraction, vast stack traces, obscure error messages and grindingly slow performance. Apparently the things I want to do are either impossible or require so much indirection it's easier to rip it out and just write it yourself... You may have detected I'm not a fan!
sys_64738 4y ago
It used to be hip and trendy but then Oracle came.
srhtftw 4y ago
In principle there's nothing wrong with Java but every Java shop I've worked at has made me sad. Lots of dynamic stuff glued together by plugins, DI, crazy configs, weird XML meta languages, runtime NPEs, stuff falling over at all hours, everyone on-call, etc... Python shops weren't much better. Enormous products of complexity, plugin frameworks to config other plugins... Go is not without its problems but at least it reins in much of the dynamic complexity (although systems like K8S built above it seem to add it back). For a lot of things it's better than Java or Python. I haven't yet worked at a Rust shop but I've used it on a few small things of my own and it seems to strike a good balance and Rust/Wasm looks really promising. So if I have the choice I'll go with a Rust startup, a Go startup, a Python/Java startup in that order.

51 points by gkresic 4y ago

Based on: https://www.workatastartup.com/companies?role=eng&role_type=be

What are the legal implications of using Java / the JVM in a commercial project these days? We're talking about Oracle here.

martypitt 4y ago

We've built a huge stack in it. (Well, Kotlin). Love it, and hiring is easy.

nicoburns 4y ago
I feel like if you're using Kotlin, then you count as avoiding Java for the purposes of this discussion.
- gkresic 4y ago
  OP here. Actually, no, I mistitled the question, should have included Kotlin. I do consider Java and Kotlin to be part of the same ecosystem that is being avoided.
  - origin_path 4y ago
    Kind weird perception. I did a startup 6 years ago that was Kotlin all the way.

PaulHoule 4y ago

I worked for 2 that used it.

Zachary-_- 4y ago

Speed. The majority of the talent pool prefers newer tools and frameworks and these are for the most part Javascript based. So you're able to implement faster, hire faster, pivot quicker.

jmartin2683 4y ago

Performance, mostly. It’s in the middle. Why do anything in the middle?

vanillax 4y ago
This isnt true. Java can be extremely high performing. Nasdaq runs on java.
- PaulHoule 4y ago
  In Java you can write correct multithreaded code that is highly scalable if you use the basic primitives and avoid snake oil like parallel streams, fork/join, etc. People wish you could write reliable and scalable parallel code with a small set of primitives but it just isn't true.
- rockwotj 4y ago
  Agreed. I wish people didn't assume GC means slow - Java has the most sophisticated GC out there. There are points when not being able to stack allocate objects hurts performance, but JVM performance is good. I've worked one two database systems written in JVM tech and the performance was good.
- jmartin2683 4y ago
  Relative to what, though? It’s a garbage collected language running on a virtual machine. At the end of the day, if I want high level ergonomics I’ll use Python and if I want performance I’ll use C. If I want both at the same time I’ll use rust. I don’t see where Java fits in this outside of some case where I’m forced to use it due to some library requirement or deployment constraint.

cultofmetatron 4y ago

Java was a mediocre language made primarily to be optimized for midsized companies and aimed to be learnable by mid level engineers. There's a lot of boilerplate and ceremony to do even basic things and a type system that takes time to learn while not providing much benefit. I've heard its gotten better in recent years but why bother? - you want the jvm libraries? kotlin is a much cleaner syntax that also runs on android and can be compiled to js. - need speed? rust is hot and has a lot of mindshare going into it as we speak. - Need cheap devs you can rotate out on your pivot cycle till you land on a viable business model? javascript lets you build your whole stack in the same language with a large pool of junior to senior talent. - need websocket or realtime? elixir wins the day there. - ml? you night have a contender here. jvm based projects like spark and hadoop use the jvm. extensively. That said, scala seems more widely used in production there but its not a field I'm super close to so I could be mistaken. I guess what I'm trying to say is that java isn't particularly bad but it doesn't have an edge either. there's nothing compelling in it thats going to give you an edge in delivering value to the users.

mcv 4y ago
I thought Python was the language of choice for ML. Still, having one language that's good at all of these does sound attractive. The excessive boilerplate is annoying, though.
- PaulHoule 4y ago
  I wrote this thing using Python years ago https://ontology2.com/essays/ClassifyingHackerNewsArticles/ https://ontology2.com/essays/ClassifyingHackerNewsArticles/ I am thinking of firming it up to make something general for long-term use against RSS feeds. I have a blast writing websockets-based applications w/ asyncio in Python for my own personal use but I'd be loathe to put one of those where they get used heavily. On the other hand I have a lot of faith in the ability of Java-based servers that take heavy hits because I've done it for years. That logistic regression classifier would be easy to port to Java but if I used Python it would be easy to add new algorithms, particularly I want to add a dimension reducer (papers I read suggest it would cut the error rate in half) and a clustering engine, with scikit-learn I get a good choice of high-performance and tested algos. On the other hand, I find it easy to write state-machine code, parsers and such in Java that chew efficiently through large volumes of text.

alvis 4y ago

A better question maybe. What is the edge of using java over others? 20 years back it was about cross platform support, but which language is not cross platform nowadays?

wisnoskij 4y ago
The problem with java is it needs a correctly installed, configured, and versions JVM installed to run the code. All the other languages will just spit out a exe that will just run if you click it. Java is the least cross platform language in existence.
- chillfox 4y ago
  Eh, a new hot language typically needs llvm to be available on a platform before it can spit out a binary for it. So it’s really just a matter of reach.
- kaba0 4y ago
  There is not even a JRE anymore - the standard way to package java apps is to bundle them with a specifically optimized JRE for your app, for exactly this reason. Also, it’s not like people just click on exes anymore, desktop apps are a tiny niche.
- origin_path 4y ago
  How is that different to Python, Ruby, Node, etc? There is at least jlink which creates standalone app directories, and native-image, which makes AOT compiled native (standalone) binaries.
- za3faran 4y ago
  > Java is the least cross platform language in existence. That's extremely hyperbolic. Try writing a cross OS program in C or C++ and tell me how it goes. #ifdefs everywhere. Running a Java program through maven or gradle is very straight forward. Versioning works really well. Not to mention the excellent cross platform handling implementations built into the JVM.

tyleo 4y ago

At this point I feel like C# exists in pretty much the same space but solves the same problems better. Java doesn’t seem to solve a unique problem any more or solve common problems better than other languages.

bob1029 4y ago
The only thing I am missing in C#/.NET is more GC options. Java lets you DIY, or completely turn it off. For everything else, I would have a hard time making an argument against C#.
- rolenthedeep 4y ago
  You can do some weird stuff to GC in C#. I haven't looked at it in several years, but I'm pretty sure there's a way to suspend GC at runtime. There's definitely a mechanism to force immediate GC, and functions to exempt an object from GC. C# is a lot more flexible than people give it credit for, I've seen some absolutely amazing things built this way. Of course, manipulating C# in unexpected ways is an absolute nightmare, but with enough determination you can do about anything
  - TideAd 4y ago
    I believe you can be notified when a collection is imminent. I saw a service use that to remove instances from the load balancer before that happened - super useful for higher-percentile latencies.
    - bob1029 4y ago
      I looked into all of this, and still have a use case where it doesn't quite work out as well as it could with Java. I can almost make it work with some pretty aggressive hackarounds, such as subdividing my service into multiple, smaller processes that each operate w/ workstation GC mode. GC runs pretty fast when object count is reasonable. Something like 1 process per latency-sensitive client is where I am at with .NET right now.
4y ago

rlawson 4y ago

I worked at a startup that used it. Great performance, easy to hire for, library for everything. This was 5 years ago so the .net core story wasn't as good then.

rjsw 4y ago

I have used it in a startup.

RamblingCTO 4y ago

We're using it (ok, but converted a big bunch of it to kotlin haha). Depends on the sector I guess.

cies 4y ago
Same boat. Not sure I'd pick in case we could start over. Quite happy it was picked over, say, PHP, JS/Node, Python...
- RamblingCTO 4y ago
  Yeah, same! I kind of favor golang, but as we're building a fintech SaaS I'm not sure I would want to write that in golang without the nifty OOP/functional stuff in Kotlin.

xyzzy4747 4y ago

You can do everything better in either TypeScript (for cognitively simple things) or Rust (for complex things that need to work correctly and be fast).

rockwotj 4y ago
There is certainly cases where Java is better than Rust (gasp I said it!) Purely from a productivity standpoint, Java is faster to write than Rust (you don't have to think about memory lifetimes and compile times are faster, I think IDEs for Java are better than Rust LSP), and you only need to optimize hot codepaths, not your whole program. Dynamic dispatch and GC give you a lower ceiling, but in the majority of systems you don't need that last bit of performance.
- xyzzy4747 4y ago
  But those are instances where you can use TypeScript/node.js which is less verbose than Java and has better native async support. Also easier to write tests for. Also VSCode with Rust Analyzer works decently as an IDE.
  - rockwotj 4y ago
    Certainly not knocking rust analyzer – it's great! I think the missing piece of node versus Java is Java has first class support for threading, so I guess it depends if your system is IO or CPU bound, but for CPU bound systems, Java is certainly better than node. My naive understanding of Java's Jit and nodes jit is that Java's has more optimizations for CPU bound workloads, where a lot of v8s optimizations have gone into faster parsing and initial loading because that's an important use case for the web compared to Java which is mostly optimizing for the server use case at this point.
    - xyzzy4747 4y ago
      If it was CPU bound and multi-threaded then wouldn’t Rust be a lot better? Since it has no runtime or garbage collection, in addition to having good built-in thread safety. Hence my original point.

P_I_Staker 4y ago

cus it sux

bombcar 4y ago

Because startups are negotiating with employees for sub-standard pay, usually. So you need to do things to convince the hotshots to come work for you, and Java is boring corporate coding, it's not the latest hotshit like Rust is. And conversely, they're also negotiating with VCs for funding, and customers. Being able to describe the hotshot language helps differentiate as to why "this startup will make it work".

PaulHoule 4y ago
I dunno, Java 17 is like "ML, the good parts" Particularly in JDK 19 with the preview flags, it is a blast using pattern matching and other new features to write compilers and similar things. It's not like Scala which compiles line noise just fine.

binkHN 4y ago

Because it’s not “cool” anymore and it was left to languish for many years? In addition, many, and better, languages have come out since it was cool. The de facto replacement for Java is Kotlin, or at least it was until Oracle started caring about it again.

falcolas 4y ago

If a startup avoids Java, it’s because the first few coders don’t use Java. That’s it. I’ve seen startups use almost every language under the sun, including the boring ones like Java, C, and PHP.

cies 4y ago
warning opinion ahead... C boring? Never a dull moment with C. PHP has a whole sub-reddit devoted to the fun that can be had with it https://www.reddit.com/r/lolphp/ https://www.reddit.com/r/lolphp/ Java, I do consider boring. But in a good sense. :)
bborud 4y ago
This is the most boring possibility so it is probably the correct guess :-)
attractivechaos 4y ago
Yep. The majority of startups in biotech use python mainly because it is much easier to find python programmers. Many of them have messy code base. They could probably do much better with Java IMHO.

Conan_Kudo 4y ago

IMO, the biggest reason is how broken the Java ecosystem is. Java-the-language is mostly okay, Java-the-toolchain (JVM) is pretty great, but Maven/Gradle/etc. are awful. Java is one of the few ecosystems that provides a software distribution ecosystem that doesn't allow distribution of sources alongside binaries. Additionally, it is a lot more common for Java dependencies to be a game of Jenga. Take for example, Gradle. Gradle literally cannot be built from source[1] because it relies on a binary cache of dependencies held by Gradle to build Gradle. There are many other examples of this. As a consequence, the Java ecosystem has become a security and maintenance nightmare that other ecosystems simply aren't. As bad as Nodejs is, it doesn't do this. As difficult as .NET has been, the dependency hygiene is better there. As annoying as Go and Rust are, they provide better guarantees in their ecosystems than Java does. While Python and Ruby are "slower" than Java, they both make it up in developer productivity and transparent, well-reasoned tooling compared to Java. [1]: https://twitter.com/decathorpe/status/1250048390228041729 https://twitter.com/decathorpe/status/1250048390228041729

darklion 4y ago
> As difficult as .NET has been Can you elaborate on the difficulty of .NET? (Purely curious!)
fn1 4y ago
> Java is one of the few ecosystems that provides a software distribution ecosystem that doesn't allow distribution of sources alongside binaries. This is wrong, source distribution is a standard in maven. > Gradle literally cannot be built from source[1] because it relies on a binary cache of dependencies held by Gradle to build Gradle. This is wrong as well as pointed out in the thread. > As a consequence, the Java ecosystem has become a security and maintenance nightmare that other ecosystems simply aren't. As bad as Nodejs is, it doesn't do this. This is almost hilarious. I'm working at a company at the moment guiding security updates for java and node.js backends. The java backends are not an issue. The node.js backends are almost impossible to upgrade, the javascript-frontends are even closer to impossibility.
cs02rm0 4y ago
As a Java developer, sort of, who uses Maven (not Gradle) but spends more time fixing UI stuff (because that's where everything breaks), I don't recognise this at all. I can't say I'm a Maven cheerleader but I find nodejs, sorry npm, with webpack, or yarn, babel, gulp, or... to be a confusing soup of incompatibility. Most of which moves on so quickly that whatever works this week is dead next week.

bin_bash 4y ago

Among many reasons I think one is that it has a poor amount of open libraries/frameworks when you stack it up against other languages. The culture is much more DIY so there isn't a lot to help you get started with a new application. I've never been a Java dev, but as I understand the package manager story is/was really bad. I've always wondered if that's part of the reason why you see so few open source efforts compared to other languages.

fn1 4y ago
This is dead-wrong. Java has excellent package management and there is a giant ecosystem and excellent libraries for almost everything you can think of.
- rockwotj 4y ago
  Agreed one of the reasons my company picked the JVM ecosystem is the pethora of excellent libraries for almost anything
KingOfCoders 4y ago
When I was a Java dev I never had a problem with package management (except everyone bundling Log4J with different version dependencies). When I've used Scala, package management was hell. When I've used Node, there were a million warnings about the dependencies of my dependencies whenever I installed something. Upgrading often broke things contrary to Java. Plus many dependencies went dead over night. When I've used JS libraries in TS, many integrations/adaptors where half baked and underdocumented. I'd say the best dependency management I've used is from Rust, but Java was no problem, even with Maven. The ecosystem might have changed since I've left, but there were many well maintained libraries and frameworks for Java, Apache, Spring and many more. What Java lacked were some higher level frameworks back than, E.g. ready to use payment frameworks (you had to use lower level frameworks like E.g. what Stripe supplied as a library).
rlawson 4y ago
I have to disagree here. For all it's faults there is a very robust ecosystem of libraries to choose from.

0xcde4c3db 4y ago

Java has its technical issues, but for a startup its biggest liability is that its vibe is the polar opposite of how startups want to see themselves and be seen by others. It's reliable, stodgy, boring, conventional. How are you going to convince people that your project is "disruptive" if you aren't willing to embrace a younger, edgier tech stack?

rlawson 4y ago
This is the best explanation I have seen.
fn1 4y ago
> How are you going to convince people that your project is "disruptive" if you aren't willing to embrace a younger, edgier tech stack? Easy: Use Kotlin, which is extremely hip and compiles to the JVM. You can use the JVM then, and mix in java-support should you need it.
matwood 4y ago
> How are you going to convince people that your project is "disruptive" if you aren't willing to embrace a younger, edgier tech stack? Deliver great software that solves a problem that people will pay you for?
- orev 4y ago
  The people being convinced in this scenario are VCs, not customers, and the point is that VCs want to hear how your tech stack is going to morph into the second coming of crypto so they can get a huge exit. It has nothing to do with actually getting customers.
RichardCA 4y ago
From a Devops perspective, I think people are accustomed to staring at a screenful of yaml or json output when something goes wrong, but not a screenful of XML. But at the sams time, a lot of places still use Jenkins, which is now the mature, legacy product. If you've been in the industry for more than a decade, this comes across as ironic, but no one knows what the next thing will be, that will finally put yaml in the rear-view mirror where it belongs.

fn1 4y ago

1. Because they confuse Java with the standard hibernate/springboot backends that are used everywhere in the industry. Hibernate/springboot is the reason why there are so many monoliths out there that are almost impossible to refactor. It's not Javas fault, it's Springs fault. 2. They believe Java is slow, but fail to realize that the JVM has actually one of the most optimized runtimes under the sun and can be fast than (unoptimized) C in many cases. Long story short: Because they have no clue about Java and follow advice without researching it first.

me_bx 4y ago

Very subjective reasons from one or two decades ago - possibly outdated now: * lack of user-friendly UIs in the end product * super frustrating *NullPointerException* showed to confused users in (almost) all java programs they get close to - despite java enthusiasts assuring that good programs should not feature that. * annoying frequent update popup shown to end users, with bloated process pushing to install other unrelated stuff * creating a super tiny dependency program in java results in a hundreds-megabytes distributable because (??) * heavy and bloated IDEs * confusing JRE / JDK required installs * licensing confusion once Oracle made Oracle Java SE paid * supposed to be multi-platform but tricky to make it work well on some versions of linux (painful memories using pentaho or gephi, finding the right file where to set-Xms<memory> -Xmx<memory> flags after a crash)

kaba0 4y ago
These were outdated even in the 2000s.

goalieca 4y ago

Java comes with a ton of unneeded complexity compared to many languages. What is one line of python code to have client tls certs becomes an enterprise exercise in implementing trust stores by extending complex interfaces.

kaba0 4y ago
These are frameworks’ properties, not the respective languages’

revskill 4y ago

Because Java doesn't allow multiple inheritance.

kaba0 4y ago
I have literally never ever missed that. Interfaces (especially with default implementations) are much better.

satya71 4y ago

Java is great fit for large teams, but personally feels less productive than Python or JS. Startups do start with small teams. The Java overhead doesn’t make sense.

rockwotj 4y ago
Very much disagree. Your argument seems like a static typing vs not and unless you're writing a small trivial thing, having types very quickly bear fruit. Also most of the good code I read these days are data oriented programs (which is largely inspired by functional programming and see rules 5 here http://users.ece.utexas.edu/~adnan/pike.html http://users.ece.utexas.edu/~adnan/pike.html) and types are very important to get the transformations correct in these systems.
- satya71 4y ago
  Both Python and JS have static typing. Edit: remove unnecessary snark
  - rockwotj 4y ago
    Strong typing maybe? Depends on what you define these terms to be. For me. Static typing is a compiler that verifies your types are correct. Neither Python nor JavaScript has this. Python allows for type annotations, which is very different. It has no (builtin) enforcement. JavaScript has no type pins whatsoever, TypeScript does. There is a proposal to add types to JavaScript but that's not approved AFAIK
    - satya71 4y ago
      Right, when I said JS with static typing, I meant TypeScript. Python has type checkers, see mypy and pyright, and I use them regularly. Most bugs that could be found by static type checker no longer make it into test or production for me.

KingOfCoders 4y ago

Out of fashion. But I've worked in two startups, one sold for $600M and one sold for $200M and both were Java based (The startup I co-founded used Scala (never again ;-) on the JVM eco system and was also successfully sold, though for less than $200M) Technologies come and go (and sometimes come back like Python). When I started Java in the 90s it was replacing often Perl on the server, as the first apps were writen by Unix admins who used Perl, which went out of fashion.

soggybutter 4y ago

Java has a bad reputation for being bloated and/or slow. I find Java and Go to be fairly similar (both GC'd, both fairly high performance, both statically typed), and yet Go has a reputation for being compact and fast. Java isn't particularly fun or thrilling to write. If you're a founding CTO or a founding team of engineers, of course you're going to choose something more "interesting" for a greenfield project. Java isn't as quick and dirty as other languages. I think this almost fully explains the prevalence of node, because after being stuck in the node ecosystem for two years, I truly can't imagine why anyone would choose to build anything substantial in node.

kaba0 4y ago
The funny thing is that Go is more verbose than Java, while this is never mocked in Go.
- alphabettsy 4y ago
  More verbose but easier to read and reason about in my opinion. A trade-off I’ll happily make.
  - kaba0 4y ago
    I don’t know, Java is a more expressive language which allows for more abstractions. This can be abused, but I think Java does strike a good balance here. You can express something like the Stream API (which is imo much more readable than deeply nested loops), while most of your code will still be ordinary method calls on objects. There certainly is an enterprise style of Java, but that is not inherent in the language, and modern Java really tries to grow away from it.

leros 4y ago

I think a big part of it is cultural. Java is a great language with tons of supporting frameworks, build systems, etc. But it's mostly geared towards larger enterprise companies. For a startup that is trying to be quick and nimble to get started, it doesn't attract the right type of talent or workflows. It can definitely be used for a startup and some do, but the hacker-y startup devs tends to lean towards other solutions.

deeteecee 4y ago

I can work much faster on Python than Java and I know both pretty well. I'm not aiming for scalability in the initial stages of my imaginary startup. That being said, it wouldn't be the worst thing for me to start with Java

nunez 4y ago

Personally I find it much much MUCH easier to bootstrap a project with Python, Go or even JavaScript than Java, especially when third-party libraries are involved. (I hate dealing with Maven or Gradle.) Kotlin and Scala are different from what I understand. Also, from what I can gather, most developers entering the industry come with JavaScript and Python experience. So there's that to consider.

taylodl 4y ago

What's the point of a JVM when your server environment is using the x86 instruction set and running Linux? The world today is very different from the world of the early 90's when Java was being developed. You want garbage collection, high performance, a vibrant ecosystem, and good build and distribution tools? Then you want Go. As many others in this thread have said, using a newer (Go is 10 years old) stack is appealing to VC's, and the hotshot programmers you're trying to attract and trade salary for stock options. This is the best strategy. If you really need to use the JVM for some reason then consider using another language on top of it such as Kotlin or Clojure. In 2022 saying your hot new startup is using Java is pretty much equivalent to saying you're using Cobol. Don't be surprised if it doesn't generate much interest from investors or developers.

kaba0 4y ago
Go’s GC is a generation behind Java’s, and while value types can alleviate the need of a good GC to a degree, long-living server applications do predominantly have very varying object lifetimes, so a GC is non-negotiable — Java usually has better performance in these use cases (it is not an accident that huge servers with terabytes of RAM running core internet services most often use Java, like Alibaba, AWS, many Google servers). Also, you sure know that Java spends most of its time executing native machine code for the architecture at hand, so your first paragraph is meaningless. On top, java’s ecosystem is much bigger than Go’s, and it has much better observability tools to monitor even prod instances.

trgn 4y ago

Because java.com looks like a scam website doesn't actually let you download latest java.

kaba0 4y ago
Have you seen it recently? Also, there is dev.java as well. And you are mostly supposed to download the JDK from the package manager of your choice where it is simply just `$PACK_MGR install openjdk`

ocius 4y ago

Python is simpler than Java. This might not be a very important factor in software engineering of large products, but it is very important for prototyping. Also, a lot of research in ML is done in Python, and there are quite a lot of startups doing ML, so Python is a natural choice. Same for data science.

angryasian 4y ago
Simpler is very subjective. Java is a good language for large enterprises is because its so standardized. Almost anyone at various levels can pretty much pick up and start contributing. Python, has so much syntactical sugar that it can get really messy.
kaba0 4y ago
Is it? Sure, some basic code probably is. But there is much more magic happening in Python than in Java, even with Spring’s dynamic class creation and whatnot.

ryandvm 4y ago

This is harsh, but as someone that has done a lot of enterprise Java development, the only reason to avoid Java is the developers. Specifically, the enterprise priests of Spring. Java is fine language and the JVM is a great runtime, but unfortunately the language itself is like a bug zapper light for graybeard enterprise devs who are not so much "Java developers" as they are "Spring engineers" (though they often refer to themselves as architects). They usually have a flair for overly complex abstraction and an encyclopedic knowledge of a couple decades worth of Spring spells, er, annotations. They typically don't build as much as they just hook shit together with Spring. Every solution is always, "oh just use yadda yadda Spring annotation/plugin." Sometimes it works, often you end up spending the day learning about yet another convoluted hunk of shit that your project just absorbed. Every Spring project turns into a myriad of black boxes where everything happens everywhere else and you're always just a few plugins short of having what you need. For enterprises this works... okay. They're big and they have a lot of money, so they usually prefer slow, complex, and consistent over rapid development dice rolls. For startups, a seasoned Java enterprise dev is like a rat. If you let one get in the door you're going to be dealing with a fucking mess in no time.

angryasian 4y ago
>They typically don't build as much as they just hook shit together with Spring. >They're big and they have a lot of money, so they usually prefer slow, complex, and consistent over rapid development dice rolls. These two statements seem contradictory to me. The entire point of using Spring is to be able to not worry about the cumbersome and gain efficiencies in development. Spring is no different than rails, a framework thats highly regarded for fast development
- MattPalmer1086 4y ago
  I'm sure it is highly regarded... My own (admittedly limited) experience is it is a hell hole of abstraction, vast stack traces, obscure error messages and grindingly slow performance. Apparently the things I want to do are either impossible or require so much indirection it's easier to rip it out and just write it yourself... You may have detected I'm not a fan!

sys_64738 4y ago

It used to be hip and trendy but then Oracle came.

srhtftw 4y ago

In principle there's nothing wrong with Java but every Java shop I've worked at has made me sad. Lots of dynamic stuff glued together by plugins, DI, crazy configs, weird XML meta languages, runtime NPEs, stuff falling over at all hours, everyone on-call, etc... Python shops weren't much better. Enormous products of complexity, plugin frameworks to config other plugins... Go is not without its problems but at least it reins in much of the dynamic complexity (although systems like K8S built above it seem to add it back). For a lot of things it's better than Java or Python. I haven't yet worked at a Rust shop but I've used it on a few small things of my own and it seems to strike a good balance and Rust/Wasm looks really promising. So if I have the choice I'll go with a Rust startup, a Go startup, a Python/Java startup in that order.