4 ms·

The point is that Java eventually adds the same stuff as well just with worse usability than the C# counterpart.

by ko27 4y ago

pron 4y ago
It doesn't eventually add the same stuff (even in this case, the feature is quite different from C#'s) as it will never add most of the stuff C# has because we want to keep Java as minimal as possible. But if your point is that Java usually only adds features that other languages already have, that is absolutely true and we'd like to keep it that way. We believe most programmers generally prefer languages with fewer features over languages with many features. As to it having worse usability, that's usually a matter of personal aesthetic preference, and there's no evidence to suggest that's the case by some objective metric.
- ko27 4y ago
  I don't think that's working out so well for you, because developers disagree https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2022/#section-most-loved-dreaded-and-wanted-programming-scripting-and-markup-languages https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2022/#section-most-loved-dre...
  - pron 4y ago
    Could a diet people would say "works well" be determined by looking at the dishes people say they love most? Topping the list would be foods that are too unhealthy or too expensive, foods that most would agree wouldn’t "work well" as a sustainable diet. When you've followed such polls for many, many years, you see that programmers report they "love" languages that they pick more than those that are picked for them, that they tend to use for hobby more than work, that they tend to use in newer/greenfield projects, that they tend to use in smaller projects, and that they tend to use alone or in a small team. But the languages that end up working out well -- for the kinds of projects where Java is used -- are those that gain wide adoption in industry, that scale to large codebases and large teams, and yield programs that are maintained for many years. The languages that have managed to achieve that best are Java and C, and, to a lesser degree, C++. If you've lived through the BASIC and later VisualBasic craze of the eighties and nineties, the SmallTalk craze of roughly the same era, the Haskell craze in academia in the mid to late nineties, the PHP craze of the early oughts, and the Ruby craze of the mid oughts, you see that the most "loved" languages are rarely the ones that end up working well. Aside from a short ~5 year period (its first five years), Java was never a particularly "loved" language. Hell, James Gosling designed it to be a boring, conservative, "blue collar" language for work, and this work-in-teams-on-large-import-projects has been the main focus of Java's evolution. It's hard to argue that this hasn't worked out really well for Java. Even if Java isn't your cup of tea, you should appreciate the need for a language you can safely bet on to build a very important codebase that should be maintained for twenty years or more. Having said that, I believe we should work on making Java more suitable for smaller, more fun projects without giving up its scalability. That's a difficult challenge, and, as far as I know, no language has ever achieved it, but perhaps Python is a reasonable source of inspiration.
    - ryloric 4y ago
      My 2c, I call Java a phalanx language. Spears seems unsexy and rather limited compared to swords at an individual level, even a skilled soldier fighting with a long spear would probably lose 1v1 with a soldier who primarily fights with a sword. Put a few dozen of them in phalanx formation though, and the swordsmen don't even stand a chance. I feel most programmers often judge tools primarily by how they function at an individual level and managers and CTOs pick based on how they perform at scale, and neither side understands the other's priorities much leading to so many debates on this aspect. So it may be unloved by individual programmers(I don't agree with most such people), but people who're responsible for delivering software absolutely love it imho. Golang too fits in the same category, every time it comes up, half the crowd here likes shitting on it for one reason or other, but quality software is being written in golang in many places.

The point is that Java eventually adds the same stuff as well just with worse usability than the C# counterpart.

by ko27 4y ago

The point is that Java eventually adds the same stuff as well just with worse usability than the C# counterpart.

pron 4y ago

It doesn't eventually add the same stuff (even in this case, the feature is quite different from C#'s) as it will never add most of the stuff C# has because we want to keep Java as minimal as possible. But if your point is that Java usually only adds features that other languages already have, that is absolutely true and we'd like to keep it that way. We believe most programmers generally prefer languages with fewer features over languages with many features. As to it having worse usability, that's usually a matter of personal aesthetic preference, and there's no evidence to suggest that's the case by some objective metric.

ko27 4y ago
I don't think that's working out so well for you, because developers disagree https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2022/#section-most-loved-dreaded-and-wanted-programming-scripting-and-markup-languages https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2022/#section-most-loved-dre...
- pron 4y ago
  Could a diet people would say "works well" be determined by looking at the dishes people say they love most? Topping the list would be foods that are too unhealthy or too expensive, foods that most would agree wouldn’t "work well" as a sustainable diet. When you've followed such polls for many, many years, you see that programmers report they "love" languages that they pick more than those that are picked for them, that they tend to use for hobby more than work, that they tend to use in newer/greenfield projects, that they tend to use in smaller projects, and that they tend to use alone or in a small team. But the languages that end up working out well -- for the kinds of projects where Java is used -- are those that gain wide adoption in industry, that scale to large codebases and large teams, and yield programs that are maintained for many years. The languages that have managed to achieve that best are Java and C, and, to a lesser degree, C++. If you've lived through the BASIC and later VisualBasic craze of the eighties and nineties, the SmallTalk craze of roughly the same era, the Haskell craze in academia in the mid to late nineties, the PHP craze of the early oughts, and the Ruby craze of the mid oughts, you see that the most "loved" languages are rarely the ones that end up working well. Aside from a short ~5 year period (its first five years), Java was never a particularly "loved" language. Hell, James Gosling designed it to be a boring, conservative, "blue collar" language for work, and this work-in-teams-on-large-import-projects has been the main focus of Java's evolution. It's hard to argue that this hasn't worked out really well for Java. Even if Java isn't your cup of tea, you should appreciate the need for a language you can safely bet on to build a very important codebase that should be maintained for twenty years or more. Having said that, I believe we should work on making Java more suitable for smaller, more fun projects without giving up its scalability. That's a difficult challenge, and, as far as I know, no language has ever achieved it, but perhaps Python is a reasonable source of inspiration.
  - ryloric 4y ago
    My 2c, I call Java a phalanx language. Spears seems unsexy and rather limited compared to swords at an individual level, even a skilled soldier fighting with a long spear would probably lose 1v1 with a soldier who primarily fights with a sword. Put a few dozen of them in phalanx formation though, and the swordsmen don't even stand a chance. I feel most programmers often judge tools primarily by how they function at an individual level and managers and CTOs pick based on how they perform at scale, and neither side understands the other's priorities much leading to so many debates on this aspect. So it may be unloved by individual programmers(I don't agree with most such people), but people who're responsible for delivering software absolutely love it imho. Golang too fits in the same category, every time it comes up, half the crowd here likes shitting on it for one reason or other, but quality software is being written in golang in many places.