4 ms·

It's a problem with a language if it requires heavyweight environments to make aspects of writing code in it acceptable.

raverbashing 14y ago
This Writing Java is unbearable without Eclipse/Netbeans. .NET a little bit less unbearable If your IDE "works harder" than your compiler, something seems wrong to me (of course we all expect things like syntax highlighting today)
- Danski 14y ago
  This may be a problem if your truck breaks down in the desert, your 3g is out of range and you never thought to install an ide beforehand but apart from that when would you find yourself writing java without an ide?
  - qxcv 14y ago
    When you're using somebody else's computer.
    - pooriaazimi 14y ago
      Edge case. I develop on my own machine (That said, I absolutely hate the verbosity of Java and love Nods.js exactly for this reason).
    - markokocic 14y ago
      When was the last time any professional software developer was forced to do any real development on someone elses computer? In that case it is likely that one will miss his keyboard, desktop shortcuts, shell aliases, browser bookmarks much more than tour ide.
      - dman 14y ago
        So you have never been asked for help from a junior developer whose development setup is different than yours?
        markokocic 14y ago
        Help in this context means discussion, advice, him showing me what he had done, me suggesting quick solution, or talking to him what to type, similar to pair programming. If _I_ had to actually write more than few lines of code, we'd just switch to my computer.
        ShabbyDoo 14y ago
        We have a standard IDE set-up for our team and require more junior devs to use it -- a least when starting out. It makes pairing with them easier.
        reeses 14y ago
        The junior developer who insists on not using an IDE working with Java is precisely the one who needs the most help.
- DrJokepu 14y ago
  Meh. It's about trade-offs. Some languages are designed to be lightweight and require minimal assistance from the IDE. Some languages are optimised for very large codebases and expect a lot of "ceremony and plumbing" around them. And then there are, of course, millions of shades between the two extremes. Java and C# are in the second group. These are all very useful tools when used for the right purposes. (Also I have written a fair amount of Java in vim and I didn't find it any more frustrating than writing Ruby in vim. And I don't even like Java.)
  - yason 14y ago
    Java pretty much created the concept of a modern IDE where the editor knows about the libraries and does boilerplate expansion for you. This wasn't generally needed before the age of Java.
    - raverbashing 14y ago
      Java also invented extreme overengineering of libraries, making it a need to have syntax completion for even trivial tasks Probably doing socket programming in C is easier than in Java (to be fair, it wasn't Java really, it was "OO evangelists" most likely, starting with C++ then going crazy with Java. Too bad they didn't even touch smalltalk
      - Deinumite 14y ago
        > Probably doing socket programming in C is easier than in Java Actually... networked programming is really easy in Java. You are right though the state of a lot of java libs is hilarious! Smalltalk seems really cool but I've never had a reason to devote time to it.
      - rbanffy 14y ago
        Learning OOP with Smalltalk can actually hurt your career. I learned OOP with Smalltalk/V, wrote some apps with Actor on Windows and, when first confronted with C++ I closed the book in horror and only came back 8 years later.
    - 14y ago
- ZoFreX 14y ago
  It's not unbearable, I've done a huge amount of Java coding on the command-line. Yes, it's harder, but I strongly believe it's better to move onto Eclipse only after learning how the tools actually work underneath. It makes it far easier to debug weird issues with the IDE, and means you're not SOL if the IDE breaks, or you're on another person's computer - you're just a bit slower, and I'd argue that applies to all tools (custom aliases, bash scripts, vim config) and not just IDEs.
  - kaffiene 14y ago
    Similar story. I used to do everything with Emacs. Java IDEs were able to offer more value and make me move from my standard dev environment (I have a C, C++, LISP background). The Java standard libraries are so numerous that having something to remember the names and parameters of all those methods is a huge win. I don't see how you can see this as a weakness of Java - if it were so bad, you wouldn't have so many languages launched on the JVM to take advantage of the Library ecosystem.
hnriot 14y ago
Is this really a concern? It's like blaming C for needing an editor, what's the big deal about using an IDE for some languages. It makes you more productive and they are not heavyweight by modern laptop standards. And even without an IDE, it's hardly that difficult to use namespaces. As has been mentioned here already, they solve a real problem, are necessary, and are much better than not having them. This just seems like ignorant hating.
- pi18n 14y ago
  You are assuming the IDE makes everyone more productive. For some people that is absolutely not the case. And the idea that you need to use an IDE for a bunch of boilerplate is abhorrent to them. It's hard for a Java zealot to understand this position for some reason.
  - AlisdairO 14y ago
    It's pretty hard to imagine an IDE not making a Java programmer more productive. The difference is truly astounding.
chc 14y ago
Is that why Lisps are so poorly thought of? They're designed around the idea of having a whole REPL all the time.
- rbanffy 14y ago
  Do you even know what a REPL is? It's just a way to run code interactively. "A whole REPL" is something that usually fits in 10 lines of code. With comments.

raverbashing 14y ago

This Writing Java is unbearable without Eclipse/Netbeans. .NET a little bit less unbearable If your IDE "works harder" than your compiler, something seems wrong to me (of course we all expect things like syntax highlighting today)

Danski 14y ago
This may be a problem if your truck breaks down in the desert, your 3g is out of range and you never thought to install an ide beforehand but apart from that when would you find yourself writing java without an ide?
- qxcv 14y ago
  When you're using somebody else's computer.
  - pooriaazimi 14y ago
    Edge case. I develop on my own machine (That said, I absolutely hate the verbosity of Java and love Nods.js exactly for this reason).
  - markokocic 14y ago
    When was the last time any professional software developer was forced to do any real development on someone elses computer? In that case it is likely that one will miss his keyboard, desktop shortcuts, shell aliases, browser bookmarks much more than tour ide.
    - dman 14y ago
      So you have never been asked for help from a junior developer whose development setup is different than yours?
      - markokocic 14y ago
        Help in this context means discussion, advice, him showing me what he had done, me suggesting quick solution, or talking to him what to type, similar to pair programming. If _I_ had to actually write more than few lines of code, we'd just switch to my computer.
      - ShabbyDoo 14y ago
        We have a standard IDE set-up for our team and require more junior devs to use it -- a least when starting out. It makes pairing with them easier.
      - reeses 14y ago
        The junior developer who insists on not using an IDE working with Java is precisely the one who needs the most help.
DrJokepu 14y ago
Meh. It's about trade-offs. Some languages are designed to be lightweight and require minimal assistance from the IDE. Some languages are optimised for very large codebases and expect a lot of "ceremony and plumbing" around them. And then there are, of course, millions of shades between the two extremes. Java and C# are in the second group. These are all very useful tools when used for the right purposes. (Also I have written a fair amount of Java in vim and I didn't find it any more frustrating than writing Ruby in vim. And I don't even like Java.)
- yason 14y ago
  Java pretty much created the concept of a modern IDE where the editor knows about the libraries and does boilerplate expansion for you. This wasn't generally needed before the age of Java.
  - raverbashing 14y ago
    Java also invented extreme overengineering of libraries, making it a need to have syntax completion for even trivial tasks Probably doing socket programming in C is easier than in Java (to be fair, it wasn't Java really, it was "OO evangelists" most likely, starting with C++ then going crazy with Java. Too bad they didn't even touch smalltalk
    - Deinumite 14y ago
      > Probably doing socket programming in C is easier than in Java Actually... networked programming is really easy in Java. You are right though the state of a lot of java libs is hilarious! Smalltalk seems really cool but I've never had a reason to devote time to it.
    - rbanffy 14y ago
      Learning OOP with Smalltalk can actually hurt your career. I learned OOP with Smalltalk/V, wrote some apps with Actor on Windows and, when first confronted with C++ I closed the book in horror and only came back 8 years later.
  - 14y ago
ZoFreX 14y ago
It's not unbearable, I've done a huge amount of Java coding on the command-line. Yes, it's harder, but I strongly believe it's better to move onto Eclipse only after learning how the tools actually work underneath. It makes it far easier to debug weird issues with the IDE, and means you're not SOL if the IDE breaks, or you're on another person's computer - you're just a bit slower, and I'd argue that applies to all tools (custom aliases, bash scripts, vim config) and not just IDEs.
- kaffiene 14y ago
  Similar story. I used to do everything with Emacs. Java IDEs were able to offer more value and make me move from my standard dev environment (I have a C, C++, LISP background). The Java standard libraries are so numerous that having something to remember the names and parameters of all those methods is a huge win. I don't see how you can see this as a weakness of Java - if it were so bad, you wouldn't have so many languages launched on the JVM to take advantage of the Library ecosystem.

hnriot 14y ago

Is this really a concern? It's like blaming C for needing an editor, what's the big deal about using an IDE for some languages. It makes you more productive and they are not heavyweight by modern laptop standards. And even without an IDE, it's hardly that difficult to use namespaces. As has been mentioned here already, they solve a real problem, are necessary, and are much better than not having them. This just seems like ignorant hating.

pi18n 14y ago
You are assuming the IDE makes everyone more productive. For some people that is absolutely not the case. And the idea that you need to use an IDE for a bunch of boilerplate is abhorrent to them. It's hard for a Java zealot to understand this position for some reason.
- AlisdairO 14y ago
  It's pretty hard to imagine an IDE not making a Java programmer more productive. The difference is truly astounding.

chc 14y ago

Is that why Lisps are so poorly thought of? They're designed around the idea of having a whole REPL all the time.

rbanffy 14y ago
Do you even know what a REPL is? It's just a way to run code interactively. "A whole REPL" is something that usually fits in 10 lines of code. With comments.