5 ms·

I'd rather write rust than java, personally

lolinder 1y ago
I'd have said the same thing 10 years ago (or, I would have if I were comparing 10-year-old Java with modern Rust), but Java these days is actually pretty ergonomic. Rust's borrow checker balances out the ML-style niceties to bring it down to about Java's level for me, depending on the application.
vips7L 1y ago
I’d rather write Java than Rust, personally
- dullcrisp 1y ago
  Wow, way to be un-hip.
- pjmlp 1y ago
  Same here, and if I get bored with Java, there is also Scala, Kotlin and Clojure to chose from. However, I would still prefer C# or F#. Hence why I enjoy both stacks, lots of goodies to chose from, with great tooling.
  - vips7L 1y ago
    I would do C#, but I don’t want to be in async/await hell. Also it’s subjective but PascalCase really irks me.
    - pjmlp 1y ago
      PascalCase has been my favourite since MS-DOS days, I have been through most Borland products, and Microsoft ones, alongside many Pascal influenced languages, thus it feels like home. :) But yeah it is subjective, also don't have much qualms with other alternatives.
noisy_boy 1y ago
If I have all the time in the world, sure. When I'm racing against a deadline, I don't want to wrestle with the borrow checker too. Sure, it's objections help with the long term quality of the code and reduce bugs but that's hard to justify to a manager/process driven by Agile and Sprints. Quite possible that an experienced Rust dev can be very productive but there aren't tons of those going around. Java has the stigma of ClassFactoryGeneratorFactory sticking to it like a nasty smell but that's not how the language makes you write things. I write Java professionally and it is as readable as any other language. You can write clean, straightforward and easy to reason code without much friction. It's a great general purpose language.
- willtemperley 1y ago
  Java is incredibly productive - it's fast and has the best tooling out there IMO. Unfortunately it's not a good gaming language. GC pauses aren't really acceptable (which C# also suffers from) and GPU support is limited. Miguel de Icaza probably has more experience than anyone building game engines on GC platforms and is very vocally moving toward reference counted languages [1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzt36EGKEZo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzt36EGKEZo
  - nayuki 1y ago
    > GC pauses aren't really acceptable Java has made great progress with low-pause (~1 ms) garbage collectors like ZGC and Shenandoah since ~5 years ago.
    - BigJono 1y ago
      People have 240hz monitors these days, you have a bit over 4ms to render a frame. If that 1ms can be eliminated or amortised over a few frames it's still a big deal, and that's assuming 1ms is the worst case scenario and not the best.
      - palata 1y ago
        What about the C# garbage collector? Is it much better? Because Unity is in C#, right?
palata 1y ago
Note that I mentioned JVM languages. There is Scala, Kotlin and others. Kotlin is the default for Android, and it is really nice.
- cies 1y ago
  Kotlin is nice indeed. Most of the issues I had with it were in interop with Java code (those pesky platform types, that behave like non-nullable but are nullable: and you are back in the NPE swamp!)

I'd have said the same thing 10 years ago (or, I would have if I were comparing 10-year-old Java with modern Rust), but Java these days is actually pretty ergonomic. Rust's borrow checker balances out the ML-style niceties to bring it down to about Java's level for me, depending on the application.

vips7L 1y ago

I’d rather write Java than Rust, personally

dullcrisp 1y ago
Wow, way to be un-hip.
pjmlp 1y ago
Same here, and if I get bored with Java, there is also Scala, Kotlin and Clojure to chose from. However, I would still prefer C# or F#. Hence why I enjoy both stacks, lots of goodies to chose from, with great tooling.
- vips7L 1y ago
  I would do C#, but I don’t want to be in async/await hell. Also it’s subjective but PascalCase really irks me.
  - pjmlp 1y ago
    PascalCase has been my favourite since MS-DOS days, I have been through most Borland products, and Microsoft ones, alongside many Pascal influenced languages, thus it feels like home. :) But yeah it is subjective, also don't have much qualms with other alternatives.

noisy_boy 1y ago

If I have all the time in the world, sure. When I'm racing against a deadline, I don't want to wrestle with the borrow checker too. Sure, it's objections help with the long term quality of the code and reduce bugs but that's hard to justify to a manager/process driven by Agile and Sprints. Quite possible that an experienced Rust dev can be very productive but there aren't tons of those going around. Java has the stigma of ClassFactoryGeneratorFactory sticking to it like a nasty smell but that's not how the language makes you write things. I write Java professionally and it is as readable as any other language. You can write clean, straightforward and easy to reason code without much friction. It's a great general purpose language.

willtemperley 1y ago
Java is incredibly productive - it's fast and has the best tooling out there IMO. Unfortunately it's not a good gaming language. GC pauses aren't really acceptable (which C# also suffers from) and GPU support is limited. Miguel de Icaza probably has more experience than anyone building game engines on GC platforms and is very vocally moving toward reference counted languages [1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzt36EGKEZo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzt36EGKEZo
- nayuki 1y ago
  > GC pauses aren't really acceptable Java has made great progress with low-pause (~1 ms) garbage collectors like ZGC and Shenandoah since ~5 years ago.
  - BigJono 1y ago
    People have 240hz monitors these days, you have a bit over 4ms to render a frame. If that 1ms can be eliminated or amortised over a few frames it's still a big deal, and that's assuming 1ms is the worst case scenario and not the best.
    - palata 1y ago
      What about the C# garbage collector? Is it much better? Because Unity is in C#, right?

palata 1y ago

Note that I mentioned JVM languages. There is Scala, Kotlin and others. Kotlin is the default for Android, and it is really nice.

cies 1y ago
Kotlin is nice indeed. Most of the issues I had with it were in interop with Java code (those pesky platform types, that behave like non-nullable but are nullable: and you are back in the NPE swamp!)