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Java has steadily grown over the years as the premier choice in the Enterprise. This is the reason that Java developers are relatively many (though I don't beli

Java has steadily grown over the years as the premier choice in the Enterprise. This is the reason that Java developers are relatively many (though I don't believe they are falling from the sky as the article suggests). This article is a little strange in general. The idea that Java was ever dead seems to be from the perspective of those who thought it was only for applets or devices. But the author acknowledges his awareness that this is not all Java ever was. So, to make the case that it died, he holds out a few examples of companies that tried something else, but couldn't scale until they went to the JVM. He simultaneously ignores the entire Enterprise Java world. Odd.

gph 13y ago
Yea, it's like the author switches perspectives to push his narrative. For normal end-users Java has all but disappeared from their ecosystem. But for enterprise programmers it never went anywhere.
- unclebucknasty 13y ago
  Exactly. It would have been a more interesting (or at least accurate) article if he'd actually focused on Java's enterprise success, then talked about how these once "edgy" start-ups somewhat ironically wound up moving from "trendier" languages/stacks, back to the Enterprise stalwart, Java.
James_Duval 13y ago
From the point-of-view of a web developer, JSP is virtually invisible. For this reason, I guess the majority of online tech magazine readers, who would presumably be mostly ninjas, pirates and rockstars, would think of Java as dead. I mean, it's a bit outdated as a language, definitely showing some signs of strain, but it's still not dead - for better or worse. I've yet to come across a more human-readable language, barring COBOL.
- SeanDav 13y ago
  For readability nothing beats BASIC. I sometimes wish that BASIC had taken off rather than being allocated to niche environments like VBA etc. It just wasn't powerful enough and in order to make it more powerful it was kind of bastardized into something almost unrecognisable form its origins.
  - dragonwriter 13y ago
    > For readability nothing beats BASIC. For readability, structured/OO/etc. languages that don't use particular terse basic constructs (e.g., idiomatic Pascal, Python, or Ruby, but generally not C/C++) beat BASIC hands down; structured and OO descendants of BASIC are pretty much in the same readability level as other mainstream non-terse structured and OO langauges.
- unclebucknasty 13y ago
  >From the point-of-view of a web developer, JSP is virtually invisible. By "invisible", do you mean that webapps that use JSP typically use URL mapping so that you never see the .jsp extension? If not, then I'm not sure I get your meaning. >I've yet to come across a more human-readable language... Yeah, I think its readability leads to a verbosity that is, ironically, the source of some complaints about Java. But, Java kind of embraces that verbosity to some extent. I've even seen style "standards" that discourage the use of language "shortcuts" because they are believed to decrease readability.
  - James_Duval 13y ago
    > By "invisible", do you mean that webapps that use JSP typically use URL mapping so that you never see the .jsp extension? If not, then I'm not sure I get your meaning. Oh, I just meant that JSP is never, ever mentioned in any mainstream web development magazine - it's absent from discussion, not practice. Back-end programming seems to be exclusively PHP/ROR if I go from what I read on web dev blogs, forums and news sources. I may simply be reading the wrong sources, of course.

gph 13y ago

Yea, it's like the author switches perspectives to push his narrative. For normal end-users Java has all but disappeared from their ecosystem. But for enterprise programmers it never went anywhere.

unclebucknasty 13y ago
Exactly. It would have been a more interesting (or at least accurate) article if he'd actually focused on Java's enterprise success, then talked about how these once "edgy" start-ups somewhat ironically wound up moving from "trendier" languages/stacks, back to the Enterprise stalwart, Java.

James_Duval 13y ago

From the point-of-view of a web developer, JSP is virtually invisible. For this reason, I guess the majority of online tech magazine readers, who would presumably be mostly ninjas, pirates and rockstars, would think of Java as dead. I mean, it's a bit outdated as a language, definitely showing some signs of strain, but it's still not dead - for better or worse. I've yet to come across a more human-readable language, barring COBOL.

SeanDav 13y ago
For readability nothing beats BASIC. I sometimes wish that BASIC had taken off rather than being allocated to niche environments like VBA etc. It just wasn't powerful enough and in order to make it more powerful it was kind of bastardized into something almost unrecognisable form its origins.
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  > For readability nothing beats BASIC. For readability, structured/OO/etc. languages that don't use particular terse basic constructs (e.g., idiomatic Pascal, Python, or Ruby, but generally not C/C++) beat BASIC hands down; structured and OO descendants of BASIC are pretty much in the same readability level as other mainstream non-terse structured and OO langauges.
unclebucknasty 13y ago
>From the point-of-view of a web developer, JSP is virtually invisible. By "invisible", do you mean that webapps that use JSP typically use URL mapping so that you never see the .jsp extension? If not, then I'm not sure I get your meaning. >I've yet to come across a more human-readable language... Yeah, I think its readability leads to a verbosity that is, ironically, the source of some complaints about Java. But, Java kind of embraces that verbosity to some extent. I've even seen style "standards" that discourage the use of language "shortcuts" because they are believed to decrease readability.
- James_Duval 13y ago
  > By "invisible", do you mean that webapps that use JSP typically use URL mapping so that you never see the .jsp extension? If not, then I'm not sure I get your meaning. Oh, I just meant that JSP is never, ever mentioned in any mainstream web development magazine - it's absent from discussion, not practice. Back-end programming seems to be exclusively PHP/ROR if I go from what I read on web dev blogs, forums and news sources. I may simply be reading the wrong sources, of course.