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As someone who uses a lot of "core" Java (ie not the messy ecosystem), and gets a lot of really complex stuff done with it, I read these articles about high-tec

As someone who uses a lot of "core" Java (ie not the messy ecosystem), and gets a lot of really complex stuff done with it, I read these articles about high-tech language features like algebraic data types and ultra-strict typing, and I think, what are these people actually doing? The vast majority of software engineering consists of simple operations that move data from one place to another - from a DB to a JSON file, from a REST endpoint to a browser screen. Is all this machinery really helping? Are you sure?

grumpyprole 3y ago
If Java is so great at solving these "simple" problems, then why do hugely complex frameworks like Spring exist? The language features of Haskell that you mention can describe your "simple operations" symbolically, you then just need to write a few different interpreters, one for real services, one for testing etc. No dependency injection, aspect-oriented programming or AbstractSingletonProxyFactoryBeans needed. You might feel that the complexity has just moved, but I'd much rather invest my time in solutions that are not ad-hoc.
- gmfawcett 3y ago
  Strawman? Spring was not designed for solving simple problems.
  - grumpyprole 3y ago
    Maybe. I've seen few Java apps that don't use Spring or something similar. The parent described a simple domain, arguing it is the common case, but nonfunctional requirements like testing typically make the problem more complex. So I dispute that Java is good enough for the common case and that nothing from Haskell would be beneficial. Incidentally, Java's leadership agrees.
Tyr42 3y ago
When writing a compiler it helps for sure. Though most of my time is protobuf in Java, I still wouldn't mind having an ADT or two for when I got lists of things and the things aren't exactly uniform but I don't want to make a type hierarchy.
- mbo 3y ago
  Doesn't `sealed trait ... permits ...` and `record` satisfy that these days for Java? That's what our proto2 `oneof`s generate into.
  - Tyr42 3y ago
    > I don't want to make a type hierarchy Yeah I could emulate it, but it's much more verbose, and the signal to noise ratio is bad. Ex, a four line Haskell ADT could be 40 to 100 lines of java, and you gotta think things through a bit more. Instead I might have two fields which are Optional and specify an invariant in the comments.
blueberry87 3y ago
What's your workflow for adding a new feature to something? In OCaml, with it's "high-tech language features like algebraic data types and ultra-strict typing", my entire workflow is: - Modify the types to add the new thing. - Fill in all the pattern matching cases that the compiler tells me I need to fill in. - Maybe write a little bit extra logic. And then i'm done, with a solution I know is type safe, will never crash unless i've explicitly let it, etc. How does this help with moving data? Well, wouldn't it be handy if the compiler could stop your program from crashing when something goes wrong, or you could have the compiler track where you've safely and unsafely done operations, or a million other things. Maybe this is too strong a statement, but if you can't see the advantage of that, I don't want to work with code you've written, because you're not doing everything you can to make it as safe as possible.
sullyj3 3y ago
Possibly you were using "algebraic data types" as a general stand in for fancy type system stuff, but algebraic data types are actually one of the least fancy haskell features. They're much more straightforward than the name might lead you to believe. I think there's a broad consensus that new statically typed languages ought to have them, eg they've been adopted by rust and swift. I find languages that don't support them very irritating to use.
root_axis 3y ago
> The vast majority of software engineering consists of simple operations that move data from one place to another All computing "consists of simple operations that move data from one place to another", that's essentially the foundation of computer science. It seems you're trying to say "most software isn't that complicated", which obviously isn't true, in fact, the opposite is true: most software is a complicated mess.
yayitswei 3y ago
The Blub Paradox is relevant here: http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html It's hard to know what you're missing if you haven't tried it. If you see patterns moving data around, it's nice to abstract those out. And higher-level languages give you more powerful abstractions.
- zzo38computer 3y ago
  I have used many different programming languages (including BASIC, C, Python, JavaScript, Java, Perl, PHP, Haskell, Lisp, and others), even with powerful abstractions (which I can understand how helpful they are), and I still think C is better, and mostly use C. There are improvements which could be made (and I have some ideas of such), but most of the stuff I have seen is usually just worse instead. Some GNU features are good though, and can be used in C, so I often use them.
  - rowanG077 3y ago
    If you seriously think C is THE best programming language you should simply be banned from writing code. Seriously. C is completely memory unsafe, all languages which are memory safe surpass it by default.
    - zzo38computer 3y ago
      I do not think C (or any other programming language) is the best programming language. However, I think that the memory safety often gets in the way, and that even if it is helpful (which it often is), memory safety is not the only important or helpful feature anyways.
consilient 3y ago
> Is all this machinery really helping? Are you sure? Absolutely: ADTs and general-purpose crud stuff are a perfect fit. It's the delicate numeric stuff where typed functional languages are at their least helpful (though I think still somewhat better than imperative ones, except at the ultra-high performance end).
tome 3y ago
> gets a lot of really complex stuff done with it ... The vast majority of software engineering consists of simple operations that move data from one place to another - from a DB to a JSON file, from a REST endpoint to a browser screen Is the complex stuff you get done with Java the same as the "majority of software engineering" you describe? I'm having trouble reconciling those two claims ...
LinXitoW 3y ago
Obviously ADTs are probably just a standin, but I think they are a feature absolutely every language ever should have. They are also not very expensive, esp. runtime wise they're (afaik) equivalent to the clunkier solutions (like classic enums). Have you never had a thing that could be EXACTLY one of two things, ever? And you wanted the compiler to make sure that, anywhere you used that thing, you had to take care of BOTH of those possibilities? That's one of the main uses of ADTs.
freilanzer 3y ago
Really complex stuff like moving data from one place to another? That's trivial.

grumpyprole 3y ago

If Java is so great at solving these "simple" problems, then why do hugely complex frameworks like Spring exist? The language features of Haskell that you mention can describe your "simple operations" symbolically, you then just need to write a few different interpreters, one for real services, one for testing etc. No dependency injection, aspect-oriented programming or AbstractSingletonProxyFactoryBeans needed. You might feel that the complexity has just moved, but I'd much rather invest my time in solutions that are not ad-hoc.

gmfawcett 3y ago
Strawman? Spring was not designed for solving simple problems.
- grumpyprole 3y ago
  Maybe. I've seen few Java apps that don't use Spring or something similar. The parent described a simple domain, arguing it is the common case, but nonfunctional requirements like testing typically make the problem more complex. So I dispute that Java is good enough for the common case and that nothing from Haskell would be beneficial. Incidentally, Java's leadership agrees.

Tyr42 3y ago

When writing a compiler it helps for sure. Though most of my time is protobuf in Java, I still wouldn't mind having an ADT or two for when I got lists of things and the things aren't exactly uniform but I don't want to make a type hierarchy.

mbo 3y ago
Doesn't `sealed trait ... permits ...` and `record` satisfy that these days for Java? That's what our proto2 `oneof`s generate into.
- Tyr42 3y ago
  > I don't want to make a type hierarchy Yeah I could emulate it, but it's much more verbose, and the signal to noise ratio is bad. Ex, a four line Haskell ADT could be 40 to 100 lines of java, and you gotta think things through a bit more. Instead I might have two fields which are Optional and specify an invariant in the comments.

blueberry87 3y ago

What's your workflow for adding a new feature to something? In OCaml, with it's "high-tech language features like algebraic data types and ultra-strict typing", my entire workflow is: - Modify the types to add the new thing. - Fill in all the pattern matching cases that the compiler tells me I need to fill in. - Maybe write a little bit extra logic. And then i'm done, with a solution I know is type safe, will never crash unless i've explicitly let it, etc. How does this help with moving data? Well, wouldn't it be handy if the compiler could stop your program from crashing when something goes wrong, or you could have the compiler track where you've safely and unsafely done operations, or a million other things. Maybe this is too strong a statement, but if you can't see the advantage of that, I don't want to work with code you've written, because you're not doing everything you can to make it as safe as possible.

sullyj3 3y ago

Possibly you were using "algebraic data types" as a general stand in for fancy type system stuff, but algebraic data types are actually one of the least fancy haskell features. They're much more straightforward than the name might lead you to believe. I think there's a broad consensus that new statically typed languages ought to have them, eg they've been adopted by rust and swift. I find languages that don't support them very irritating to use.

root_axis 3y ago

> The vast majority of software engineering consists of simple operations that move data from one place to another All computing "consists of simple operations that move data from one place to another", that's essentially the foundation of computer science. It seems you're trying to say "most software isn't that complicated", which obviously isn't true, in fact, the opposite is true: most software is a complicated mess.

yayitswei 3y ago

The Blub Paradox is relevant here: http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html It's hard to know what you're missing if you haven't tried it. If you see patterns moving data around, it's nice to abstract those out. And higher-level languages give you more powerful abstractions.

zzo38computer 3y ago
I have used many different programming languages (including BASIC, C, Python, JavaScript, Java, Perl, PHP, Haskell, Lisp, and others), even with powerful abstractions (which I can understand how helpful they are), and I still think C is better, and mostly use C. There are improvements which could be made (and I have some ideas of such), but most of the stuff I have seen is usually just worse instead. Some GNU features are good though, and can be used in C, so I often use them.
- rowanG077 3y ago
  If you seriously think C is THE best programming language you should simply be banned from writing code. Seriously. C is completely memory unsafe, all languages which are memory safe surpass it by default.
  - zzo38computer 3y ago
    I do not think C (or any other programming language) is the best programming language. However, I think that the memory safety often gets in the way, and that even if it is helpful (which it often is), memory safety is not the only important or helpful feature anyways.

consilient 3y ago

> Is all this machinery really helping? Are you sure? Absolutely: ADTs and general-purpose crud stuff are a perfect fit. It's the delicate numeric stuff where typed functional languages are at their least helpful (though I think still somewhat better than imperative ones, except at the ultra-high performance end).

tome 3y ago

> gets a lot of really complex stuff done with it ... The vast majority of software engineering consists of simple operations that move data from one place to another - from a DB to a JSON file, from a REST endpoint to a browser screen Is the complex stuff you get done with Java the same as the "majority of software engineering" you describe? I'm having trouble reconciling those two claims ...

LinXitoW 3y ago

Obviously ADTs are probably just a standin, but I think they are a feature absolutely every language ever should have. They are also not very expensive, esp. runtime wise they're (afaik) equivalent to the clunkier solutions (like classic enums). Have you never had a thing that could be EXACTLY one of two things, ever? And you wanted the compiler to make sure that, anywhere you used that thing, you had to take care of BOTH of those possibilities? That's one of the main uses of ADTs.

freilanzer 3y ago

Really complex stuff like moving data from one place to another? That's trivial.