5 ms·

Java hits a sweet spot of simplicity, platform stability, safety and performance. Also, its popularity in the enterprise is partly because interchangeable, cog

Java hits a sweet spot of simplicity, platform stability, safety and performance. Also, its popularity in the enterprise is partly because interchangeable, cog-in-the-machine low quality developers can be productive in it and not cause too many meltdowns. Thats an economic advantage! If you need lots of cheap developers for your IT department, good luck finding 15 Clojure and Haskell gurus. I say that as a Java developer, btw.

ayrx 12y ago
Isn't it just a little sad that the biggest selling point of a language is that mediocre developers won't cause too many problems with it?
- adamors 12y ago
  It's not sad, because most developers are mediocre. It may not apply to you, but if you work in the industry long enough you realize that very few of your colleagues are good/great. And there's nothing wrong with that, but if you want to build systems that have to be maintained over multiple years, you somehow have to compensate for that. Java is one compensation.
  - MrBuddyCasino 12y ago
    Exactly. By definition, most developers are mediocre, and thats okay. Platform stability and limiting complexity is really important in the long run, so (luckily, imho) C++ and Scala are non-starters.
    - Dewie 12y ago
      > Exactly. By definition, most developers are mediocre, and thats okay. That doesn't say much. So yes, most developers are average, but what is average? Is it necessarily developers who need training wheels, helmets and elbow pads in order to protect themselves and others? That may be the reality, for all I know. But that isn't necessarily a timeless truth. Take a room of expert programmers; now most of them are mediocre (average), relative to each other (imagine a really big room with a lot of experts, if you must). But that doesn't necessarily mean that they need languages that cramp their style in order to mitigate whatever damage they might do. "Mediocre" is the same as "average", but with more negative connotations. Hence, when someone says that some people are 'mediocre', the immediate thought might be "bad". Then it becomes obvious that tools need to hinder these bad developers from screwing up too much. But mediocre is just a relative term, and can mean that they are really bad developers who create 100 bugs for every feature they implement, or that they are really competent, reliable developers. I won't comment on the skill of the average (mediocre) developer. But I think that saying "most are mediocre" can easily hint at "most are bad" (because of connotations, not necessarily because that was the intent).
      - MrBuddyCasino 12y ago
        True, there is a negative connotation there - maybe using that term was a mistake. There certainly are huge variations in baseline skill depending on location and line of business. I was thinking of the more or less generic enterprise software environment in firms whose main business is not software development, and which reside outside silicon valley or other tech hubs.
dozzie 12y ago
Simplicity -- none, if talking about the resulting code. Stability -- none, regarding possible law suits from Oracle. Yes, it does matter for a company. Yes, Oracle did that in the past. Performance -- poor, regarding memory consumption. Indeed, the sweet spot. > If you need lots of cheap developers [...] Shoddy, you mean. For Haskell or Clojure you have at least a guarantee that the guys you found are decent. It's the same hard finding decent Java programmers as it is with Haskell, except that Java scares good devs away and Haskell attracts them.
- dtech 12y ago
  > Stability -- none, regarding possible law suits from Oracle. Yes, it does matter for a company. Yes, Oracle did that in the past. Do you have actual examples of companies using Java for their run-of-the mill software that have been hit with lawsuits from Sun/Oracle? The only two I can remember are Sun vs Microsoft (because of proprietary extentions) and Oracle vs Google (complex licensing issues). Sounds like FUD to me.
- matthewmacleod 12y ago
  Simplicity -- none, if talking about the resulting code. Bollocks. Java code can be over-complex and lack elegance, but it's not the worst offender - sweet spot. Stability -- none, regarding possible law suits from Oracle. Yes, it does matter for a company. Yes, Oracle did that in the past. Bollocks. I challenge you to provide an example of a Java developer being sued for using the language. Performance -- poor, regarding memory consumption. Bollocks. Uses more memory than C, but no manual management. Sweet spot. Shoddy, you mean. For Haskell or Clojure you have at least a guarantee that the guys you found are decent. Bollocks. In my experience, they're likely to be somewhat better skilled and educated. They're also far more likely to spend their time arse-ing around trying to implement an elegant, concise solution to problems which only exist because of not-invented-here syndrome, or because their language lacks as extensive a standard library. As an example, I once worked on a Mac GUI app for a company - bog-standard, nothing fancy. I took over from a developer who had been trying to build this using Racket; this involved building a Qt-Racket interface, which involved magical automated parsing of C++ header files, which meant… basically, not delivering a product. Meanwhile, the Objective C build was done. The point is, there's far too much focus and snobbery about what tools developers use. There are loads of languages out there; pick one that has a reasonable amount of support and fits the problem domain, and build simple, maintainable code. You can do that in any language.

ayrx 12y ago

Isn't it just a little sad that the biggest selling point of a language is that mediocre developers won't cause too many problems with it?

adamors 12y ago
It's not sad, because most developers are mediocre. It may not apply to you, but if you work in the industry long enough you realize that very few of your colleagues are good/great. And there's nothing wrong with that, but if you want to build systems that have to be maintained over multiple years, you somehow have to compensate for that. Java is one compensation.
- MrBuddyCasino 12y ago
  Exactly. By definition, most developers are mediocre, and thats okay. Platform stability and limiting complexity is really important in the long run, so (luckily, imho) C++ and Scala are non-starters.
  - Dewie 12y ago
    > Exactly. By definition, most developers are mediocre, and thats okay. That doesn't say much. So yes, most developers are average, but what is average? Is it necessarily developers who need training wheels, helmets and elbow pads in order to protect themselves and others? That may be the reality, for all I know. But that isn't necessarily a timeless truth. Take a room of expert programmers; now most of them are mediocre (average), relative to each other (imagine a really big room with a lot of experts, if you must). But that doesn't necessarily mean that they need languages that cramp their style in order to mitigate whatever damage they might do. "Mediocre" is the same as "average", but with more negative connotations. Hence, when someone says that some people are 'mediocre', the immediate thought might be "bad". Then it becomes obvious that tools need to hinder these bad developers from screwing up too much. But mediocre is just a relative term, and can mean that they are really bad developers who create 100 bugs for every feature they implement, or that they are really competent, reliable developers. I won't comment on the skill of the average (mediocre) developer. But I think that saying "most are mediocre" can easily hint at "most are bad" (because of connotations, not necessarily because that was the intent).
    - MrBuddyCasino 12y ago
      True, there is a negative connotation there - maybe using that term was a mistake. There certainly are huge variations in baseline skill depending on location and line of business. I was thinking of the more or less generic enterprise software environment in firms whose main business is not software development, and which reside outside silicon valley or other tech hubs.

dozzie 12y ago

Simplicity -- none, if talking about the resulting code. Stability -- none, regarding possible law suits from Oracle. Yes, it does matter for a company. Yes, Oracle did that in the past. Performance -- poor, regarding memory consumption. Indeed, the sweet spot. > If you need lots of cheap developers [...] Shoddy, you mean. For Haskell or Clojure you have at least a guarantee that the guys you found are decent. It's the same hard finding decent Java programmers as it is with Haskell, except that Java scares good devs away and Haskell attracts them.

dtech 12y ago
> Stability -- none, regarding possible law suits from Oracle. Yes, it does matter for a company. Yes, Oracle did that in the past. Do you have actual examples of companies using Java for their run-of-the mill software that have been hit with lawsuits from Sun/Oracle? The only two I can remember are Sun vs Microsoft (because of proprietary extentions) and Oracle vs Google (complex licensing issues). Sounds like FUD to me.
matthewmacleod 12y ago
Simplicity -- none, if talking about the resulting code. Bollocks. Java code can be over-complex and lack elegance, but it's not the worst offender - sweet spot. Stability -- none, regarding possible law suits from Oracle. Yes, it does matter for a company. Yes, Oracle did that in the past. Bollocks. I challenge you to provide an example of a Java developer being sued for using the language. Performance -- poor, regarding memory consumption. Bollocks. Uses more memory than C, but no manual management. Sweet spot. Shoddy, you mean. For Haskell or Clojure you have at least a guarantee that the guys you found are decent. Bollocks. In my experience, they're likely to be somewhat better skilled and educated. They're also far more likely to spend their time arse-ing around trying to implement an elegant, concise solution to problems which only exist because of not-invented-here syndrome, or because their language lacks as extensive a standard library. As an example, I once worked on a Mac GUI app for a company - bog-standard, nothing fancy. I took over from a developer who had been trying to build this using Racket; this involved building a Qt-Racket interface, which involved magical automated parsing of C++ header files, which meant… basically, not delivering a product. Meanwhile, the Objective C build was done. The point is, there's far too much focus and snobbery about what tools developers use. There are loads of languages out there; pick one that has a reasonable amount of support and fits the problem domain, and build simple, maintainable code. You can do that in any language.