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IMO, there's rarely such a thing as maintenance mode. Projects constantly evolve, and in turn this drives more investment in tooling and the ecosystem needed to

IMO, there's rarely such a thing as maintenance mode. Projects constantly evolve, and in turn this drives more investment in tooling and the ecosystem needed to keep those projects up. And this investment is what eventually drives more new projects and fresh blood, keeping the language fresh and in demand. Again, look at Java. Ofc, there's always the question of what happens with a market that isn't constantly growing due to zero-interest rates phenomenon. I guess we'll see, but IMO, that's problematic for newer languages, not established ones. I too am a contributor of very popular libraries and am very familiar with ecosystem. One thing to keep in mind is that the language's culture has evolved. When I picked up Scala, back in 2010, the Future pattern and Future-driven libraries were all the rage. Whereas nowadays people prefer alternatives which now includes blocking I/O (Loom), with Future-driven libs being a risk going forward.

int_19h 2y ago
I don't think many people would describe Java as "fresh" these days. In demand, sure, but this is overwhelmingly driven by existing large enterprise codebases. Also, for all the talk about nifty new features, how much stuff is still on v11 even?
- bad_user 2y ago
  I understand from where your reply is coming from, but again, I was reading the same opinions about Java since more than 2 decades ago. > overwhelmingly driven by existing large enterprise codebases That happens with all mainstream languages, but it's a feedback cycle. The more popular a language is (in large enterprise codebases), the more it will get used in new projects, for obvious reasons. People want to get shit done and to have good ROI and maintenance costs. Therefore, the availability of documentation, tooling, libraries, and developers helps, in large and small projects alike. And yes, Java is quite fresh, IMO.
  - int_19h 2y ago
    Two decades ago was 2004; that would be when Java first shipped generics. I remember those times and I don't think the sentiment was similar then. People certainly had many complaints about Java, and more specifically about some elements of the stack such as EJB, but as a whole I don't recall it being predominantly seen as "legacy" back then the way it is now.
  - randomdata 2y ago
    > The more popular a language is (in large enterprise codebases), the more it will get used in new projects It seems to me the more popular a language, the more poorly written libraries are found in it, which soon starts to draw people away from what is popular to a new language that has a limited library ecosystem thinking they can fix the mistakes they saw last time and make a name for themselves in the process. Lather, rinse, repeat.
- surgical_fire 2y ago
  I've been a Java developer for nearly 2 decades, in multi companies, despite being proficient with other languages. Java just happened to pay better. Nearly all companies I worked for were developing new systems, tools, etc. Rarely I was doing maintenance on "existing larger enterprise systems".
- baud147258 2y ago
  > how much stuff is still on v11 even? We've had a potential client ask for a PoC in Java 8, to integrate with their current system... But yeah, our product is deployed with Java 11 and since some dependencies have issues with 18, we'll likely stay that way for a few more years

int_19h 2y ago

I don't think many people would describe Java as "fresh" these days. In demand, sure, but this is overwhelmingly driven by existing large enterprise codebases. Also, for all the talk about nifty new features, how much stuff is still on v11 even?

bad_user 2y ago
I understand from where your reply is coming from, but again, I was reading the same opinions about Java since more than 2 decades ago. > overwhelmingly driven by existing large enterprise codebases That happens with all mainstream languages, but it's a feedback cycle. The more popular a language is (in large enterprise codebases), the more it will get used in new projects, for obvious reasons. People want to get shit done and to have good ROI and maintenance costs. Therefore, the availability of documentation, tooling, libraries, and developers helps, in large and small projects alike. And yes, Java is quite fresh, IMO.
- int_19h 2y ago
  Two decades ago was 2004; that would be when Java first shipped generics. I remember those times and I don't think the sentiment was similar then. People certainly had many complaints about Java, and more specifically about some elements of the stack such as EJB, but as a whole I don't recall it being predominantly seen as "legacy" back then the way it is now.
- randomdata 2y ago
  > The more popular a language is (in large enterprise codebases), the more it will get used in new projects It seems to me the more popular a language, the more poorly written libraries are found in it, which soon starts to draw people away from what is popular to a new language that has a limited library ecosystem thinking they can fix the mistakes they saw last time and make a name for themselves in the process. Lather, rinse, repeat.
surgical_fire 2y ago
I've been a Java developer for nearly 2 decades, in multi companies, despite being proficient with other languages. Java just happened to pay better. Nearly all companies I worked for were developing new systems, tools, etc. Rarely I was doing maintenance on "existing larger enterprise systems".
baud147258 2y ago
> how much stuff is still on v11 even? We've had a potential client ask for a PoC in Java 8, to integrate with their current system... But yeah, our product is deployed with Java 11 and since some dependencies have issues with 18, we'll likely stay that way for a few more years