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I have said that for awhile: the worst thing about Java is Java developers. I have some issues with the Java language (though Java 21? Actually pretty ok!), bu

I have said that for awhile: the worst thing about Java is Java developers. I have some issues with the Java language (though Java 21? Actually pretty ok!), but there's no question that there's a lot of great stuff in regards to libraries in Java land. A lot of the stuff that's just built into the JDK is already very good, for example. NIO can be a bit hard to work with, but is generally very good, fast, and reliable. A lot of the concurrency abstractions (e.g. BlockingQueues) are really pleasant to work with for most concurrent programs, the different types of mutexes/locks give access to most of the patterns you want, and the thread-safe collections like ConcurrentHashMaps are very boring, in that they work pretty much exactly as I want them to. If we extend to third party libraries, it's even better. Vert.x and Disruptor, for example, are downright excellent tools for wrangling concurrency. The issue is that it feels like a lot of Java developers are stuck in 1999; it can be like pulling teeth to even use NIO, which isn't exactly "new" at this point. When I wrote some stuff using BlockingQueues instead of throwing `synchronized` everywhere, people acted like I was grabbing this was some exotic code from a distant land that had never been tried before, When I imported Vert.x into my project because I needed to run a lot of non-blocking concurrent tasks, it required a lot of justification for using it instead of using threads everywhere.

rr808 2y ago
> When I imported Vert.x into my project because I needed to run a lot of non-blocking concurrent tasks, it required a lot of justification for using it instead of using threads everywhere. Isn't async unnecessary now? Threads are now cheap enough that its much easier to write sync'd calls on a thread.
p2detar 2y ago
Agree with everything that you wrote. The saddest thing is the job market. It would not be a lie to say the 90% of the jobs list Spring/Boot as a requirement. It's like a framework equals the whole language. This cannot be a good sign. I'm thankful enough to have around 2 decades of Java experience without touching anything named Spring and boy I can tell you I have been having lots of fun with Java. Using Vert.x right now and I like it a lot.
- tombert 2y ago
  I don't do web stuff (and hopefully that can stay that way), so I've managed to avoid a lot of Spring stuff, but I am stuck using Spring Streams for some Kafka stuff I'm doing. I'm not going to lie, I don't love it, but that's mostly because it feels like all I do is write YAML files all day. Vert.x is a lot of fun, and I've gotten pretty decent performance with its SQL libraries in particular, though I'm not sure I'm a huge fan of the EventBus. I've had better luck with LMAX Disruptor, at least for the data-processey stuff that I do. But as I said, there's a ton of really great libraries in Java. The language isn't perfect, but Java 21 fixes a lot of my gripes, and it's nice to have a ton of really well-tested libraries to minimize how often you have to reinvent the wheel.
munksbeer 2y ago
> The issue is that it feels like a lot of Java developers are stuck in 1999 Where are you working that you encounter these people? I've been doing Java for about 15 years now (C++ before that) and as the years have gone by I just don't encounter this stuff. I do work in finance technology, so we're not doing crud apps, maybe that makes a difference. Granted, there is a lot of "C in Java" code around in this industry.

rr808 2y ago

> When I imported Vert.x into my project because I needed to run a lot of non-blocking concurrent tasks, it required a lot of justification for using it instead of using threads everywhere. Isn't async unnecessary now? Threads are now cheap enough that its much easier to write sync'd calls on a thread.

p2detar 2y ago

Agree with everything that you wrote. The saddest thing is the job market. It would not be a lie to say the 90% of the jobs list Spring/Boot as a requirement. It's like a framework equals the whole language. This cannot be a good sign. I'm thankful enough to have around 2 decades of Java experience without touching anything named Spring and boy I can tell you I have been having lots of fun with Java. Using Vert.x right now and I like it a lot.

tombert 2y ago
I don't do web stuff (and hopefully that can stay that way), so I've managed to avoid a lot of Spring stuff, but I am stuck using Spring Streams for some Kafka stuff I'm doing. I'm not going to lie, I don't love it, but that's mostly because it feels like all I do is write YAML files all day. Vert.x is a lot of fun, and I've gotten pretty decent performance with its SQL libraries in particular, though I'm not sure I'm a huge fan of the EventBus. I've had better luck with LMAX Disruptor, at least for the data-processey stuff that I do. But as I said, there's a ton of really great libraries in Java. The language isn't perfect, but Java 21 fixes a lot of my gripes, and it's nice to have a ton of really well-tested libraries to minimize how often you have to reinvent the wheel.

munksbeer 2y ago

> The issue is that it feels like a lot of Java developers are stuck in 1999 Where are you working that you encounter these people? I've been doing Java for about 15 years now (C++ before that) and as the years have gone by I just don't encounter this stuff. I do work in finance technology, so we're not doing crud apps, maybe that makes a difference. Granted, there is a lot of "C in Java" code around in this industry.