I’m a fan, long time fan, but I can honestly say that I feel Java is one of the most pragmatic development systems on the planet. It can do most anything. It c

I’m a fan, long time fan, but I can honestly say that I feel Java is one of the most pragmatic development systems on the planet. It can do most anything. It can do it most anywhere. And you can code in it using several different paradigms. It’s easy to install, it’s easy to be instal several versions, the footprint, by today’s standards, is not enormous. It’s easy to deploy, especially server side. While you can certainly do all of that modern stuff with containers and what not, it’s not really necessary for Java. Drag and drop a JDK install, anywhere. Plonk your Java server code, anywhere, and point it at your JDK, and. . .that’s it! Fire it up. The JDK is remarkably light on dependencies. And since most Java apps are “pure Java”, the apps rarely have a dependency outside of the JDK. And since Java apps routinely bundle their Java dependencies, the apps don’t stomp on each other either. Even SQLite bundles it’s binaries in the Java Jar file. So wherever that jar goes (again, and typically bundled with your app), SQLite goes. No floating dependencies. Desktop bundling requires a bit of search engine research, but it’s doable. And the runtimes can dwarf something like Electron installs. As a language is Java ELEGANT? Not particularly. It has its own elegance in some areas but that can break down or get overrun in others. But, boy howdy, it sure is practical. The ecosystem is so huge. It compiles really fast. I marvel at the stories folks tell about their dev cycles in other languages. How do they get anything done, besides sword fighting? I love Java, but I’m very comfortable in it. But the Maven based dependency system works, it’s huge, it makes use and reuse simple. The IDEs are powerful and mature. And, finally, Java’s not dead. Hardly. Oracle has been a surprisingly good steward (with warts, as always). The language has been on a rocket of development and shows no sign of slowing down. Server side is still very hot with all the frameworks and all the different approaches. Things like GraalVM taking the JVM in a whole new direction. And, yea, that. I’ve only been talking Java the language, not the JVM itself per se. That’s a whole other thread.