The Struggle To Keep Java Relevant 667
snydeq writes "Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister questions Oracle's ability to revive interest in Java in the wake of Oracle VP Jeet Kaul's announcement at EclipseCon that he would 'like to see people with piercings doing Java programming.' 'If Kaul is hoping Java will once again attract youthful, cutting-edge developers, as it did when it debuted in 1995, [Kaul] may be in for a long wait,' McAllister writes. 'Java has evolved from a groundbreaking, revolutionary language platform to something closer to a modern-day version of Cobol.' And, as McAllister sees it, 'Nothing screams "get off my lawn" like a language controlled by Oracle, the world's largest enterprise software vendor. The chances that Java can attract the mohawks-and-tattoos set today seem slimmer than ever.'"
Groovy (Score:3, Interesting)
THe thing that makes me think Java has a huge path forward is groovy.
in theory groovy has all the advantage python has and more. Plus unlike python it has a path forward to a statically typed quasi compiled and generally close-to-c speed when you need it without much effort.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Java got drowned in four letter acronyms on top of yet another layer of XML. I say let it die.
Re:Groovy (Score:5, Insightful)
The history of Java is very instructive for any aspiring professional coder.
Management: Damn these irreplaceable "programmers"! Look at their goddamn salaries. We need to standardize technology, remove the sharp edges, and train people who understand! Sun has got the thing.
Programmers: Heh. We're going to be spinning out gotta-haveit ETLA frameworks faster than your Indian developers can say 'Yes sir! Right away sir!". Good luck with that. Now bend over and take another load of XML. *cracks-knuckles*
Live by the marketing hype, die by the marketing hype, Sun Java.
I've.never.used.groovy.so.I.have.a.question. (Score:3, Insightful)
Does.it.allow.you.to.do.useful.things.without.typing.a.classpath.fifteen.layers.deep?
If.so.it.might.be.exactly.what.is.needed.to.make.Java.an.appealing.language.for.programmers.with.fresh.ideas. Else.it.won't.do.the.trick.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Would you prefer not to have name spaces? C is pretty crap you know. "import" is pretty easy in Java too.
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Namespaces are useful, and custom namespaces cut down on a lot of the clutter in Java, but they shouldn't be necessary for basic functionality. The way I see it (YMMV, of course) K&R C provides pretty much the functionality that any language should have as part of the core language spec; if I can do something in n characters in C but it takes me 10n characters to do it in some newer and supposedly better language, I'm hard-pressed to consider that an improvement.
Re:I've.never.used.groovy.so.I.have.a.question. (Score:5, Insightful)
Uhuh... so you determine language quality by the terseness of it's text.
Interesting.
Well, you have fun writing your terse programs with inexplicably named, but I'm sure very compact, variable and function names, while the rest of us move on to writing code other people can actually, you know, read and understand while putting up with the horrible hardship of having to type a little bit more.
Oh, and BTW, any language that has namespaces has an import keyword. Maybe you should try it out sometime.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
It's certainly not a complete measure of a language, but they are certainly worse ways to look at it. Java has some inconveniences, like famously deep class hierarchies which lead to very long lines of code. OTOH, Java has support for generics, and some inherent safety mechanisms which would need to be handled manually in C. In C, it's normal to have a set of similarly named functions that operate on floats, doubles, int,
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How are generics a good thing? They are a band aid for the fact that not everything in Java is an object.
Bollocks, auto-boxing is a band aid for that. Generics *require* the use of objects instead of basic types.
I would say that is the most serious defect of Java, apart from the lack of closures (yes, I know they are coming, but when?).
Generics are hard to add, since they require specific support on the language level, it's not just adding syntax and be done with it.
Plus any JVM I have seen is a piece of shit. Sorry, but if the official JVM takes several seconds just to start, that disqualifies it from a lot of perfectly good uses.
And there am I, replying to a fucking troll. Applets still have pretty bad startup times, but the JVM? Seriously?
Initial startup time:
real 0m0.928s
user 0m0.080s
sys 0m0.030s
second startup time (things are in cache now)
real 0m0.109s
user 0m0.070s
sys 0m0.000
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Initial startup time:
real 0m0.928s
user 0m0.080s
sys 0m0.030s
Yes, similar numbers on my 4 year old laptop running linux, although "ffmpeg -version" is 25 times faster.
I'm not sure about windows in general, but the corporate windows we have at work, on similar hardware, takes 10 seconds to run java -version the first time.
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Java is readable, it's just not very expressive, which means you need a lot of code to get anything done. Often you need a couple of classes to get the structure of your code right. Perl is indeed the polar opposite: expressive but unreadable.
Good languages have both. Ruby, Python and Groovy are readable, but also very expressive. You can do stuff in a single very readable line that would take a page of Java, or a very arcane line of Perl.
Re:I've.never.used.groovy.so.I.have.a.question. (Score:5, Insightful)
No. K&R C lacks the following things:
* first class functions, lambda, closures
* comprehensions
* coroutines
* proper generics/templates (no, macros are _not_ a replacement)
* painless string handling
* module system
* namespaces
* reflection
* support for common oop patterns and tools, like class definitions, dynamic dispatch etc. it has to be manually constructed, which is quite time consuming
Now, of course it is a valid point that these things do not necessarily belong in C. It is a system programming language, after all. But these features are very important for other domains, such as application development. Right tool for the right job, please. C is _not_ the shiny hammer, and not everything is a nail.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
* first class functions, lambda, closures
First class functions are primarily the realm of functional programming languages, not procedural ones.
Lambda's, combined with ways to refer to them (C++ std::function, templates, auto) are a type of first class function.
Closures provide an interesting alternative way to code some things, but seriously who really misses them in C/C++?
Have you been living under a rock? Just about every major language out there is implementing these features. Python, C#, C++, Ruby, Javascript among others. (Java doesn't, and it is sorely missed.)
And, I do miss closures in C++. Right now I can think of several factory pattern implementations that would be greatly simplified if I could return closures instead of objects. Closures are objects are closures, sure
but they do differ in practice.
* comprehensions
Use a libary.
Good luck writing and/or finding one in C that doesn't end up requir
Re:I've.never.used.groovy.so.I.have.a.question. (Score:4, Insightful)
> ArrayList myList = new ArrayList();.
Then just use the construct from the "founding fathers" if it bothers you that much, it still works you know :-)
ArrayList myList = new ArrayList();
More seriously, how much time does a developer spend typing compared to what he should be spending thinking ?
The fact that java forces you to type more also forces you to type basic documentation as you code and in my opinion, this is a good thing. In the end, you get easier to maintain code at almost no extra cost ;-)
I have never understood developers saying that a language was superior because you can write code using less key strokes using it.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
You're probably right. Maybe I should have added a Cowboy Neal box.
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See my reply to the previous answer to my comment; the workarounds you describe are effective, but they shouldn't be necessary. One of the main things that distinguishes a good language from a bad one, IMNSGDHO, is that the former doesn't make you feel like you're fighting the language to get things done.
Ah, pay me no attention, youngdev -- I'm just a grumpy old man, one of the get-off-my-lawn crowd that is supposedly the only group of people using Java these days. ;)
And no, I don't use Notepad for develop
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
class Test {
public static void main(String[] args) {
out.println("Hey");
}
}
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But you would still have to type "out.", what are you thinking?
Re:Groovy (Score:5, Funny)
Oh well, I also realized that I'm starting to grow my own lawn...
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C integration with Groovy is the same as C integration with Java... since Groovy uses the JVM, which means making some definitions in Java for the external functions handled by C, adding some extra build options and writing the C module itself. It's the same as any other language... it's fairly easy to write C modules for tcl, perl, python. java, etc... you just need to look up the bindings library and off you go.
Re:Groovy (Score:4, Interesting)
Because C is the new assembly language! It has a huge existing codebase. I like having the option of implementing the performance critical bits in C if it proves necessary (often, it doesn't). The way C is called from another language also tells me a lot about the underlying structure of that language.
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With syntax like this:
amPM = Calendar.getInstance().get(Calendar.AM_PM)
That's not Groovy's fault. That's Sun's fault for writing a retarded Date library and refusing to replace it with something sane.
Groovy has TimeCategory, which is what you want to use. With it, you can just do:
2.months.ago
and get what you'd expect to get.
Re:Groovy (Score:4, Informative)
Oh - bonus points if you store the Calendar instance in a static variable, and never require the getInstance() call again.
This would introduce a bug in your application, since Calendar.getInstance() always returns a new instance, containing the current time at the moment it is created. Storing it in a static variable and reusing it would return the same time forever.
Moreover, Calendar is not thread-safe and is mutable, so storing it in a shared static variable is a really bad idea.
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That's not the point I was trying to make - the point is that there is yet another syntax that has to be coped with for programmers.
the best programmers? (Score:2, Insightful)
Maybe he's barking up the wrong tree. The best young programmers I know don't have any piercings or tattoos that I can see.
I have no data to support this, but I have always thought the best of the tech crowd were too busy being into their tech to get into the body modification scene. I don't think this is different now than it was 30 years ago.
On the other hand, there's a lot I can't see (and in many cases, thank goodness!)
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I'm gonna go out on a limb here and guess that you don't live or work in the San Francisco area.
I do, and STILL the best programmers I know have neither piercings nor tattoos.
Attention whores with dubious amount of talent, on the other hand...
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I do, and don't see much of that from top coders. If you go to cultural events like SuperHappyDevHouse, meetups at the Hacker Dojo, etc., there are a handful of mohawked/pierced types, but not many. Maybe up in SF proper (as opposed to Silicon Valley) there are more, but I haven't seen 'em.
Now if you're talking web designers, yeah, there's lots of those.
Re:the best programmers? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:the best programmers? (Score:4, Funny)
I have tattoos, and I used to have piercings.
According to people with piercings and tatoos that is "+4 Insightful".
I'm also a damn good coder.
Thanks for your unbiased opinion.
I seriously doubt the two are related.
I seriously doubt a person who uses him/herself as a positive example to prove a point.
Re:the best programmers? (Score:4, Funny)
Cutting edge == Johnny Rotten? (Score:5, Insightful)
Someone emulating the punk movement of 40 years ago is "cutting edge"? If that's his idea of "cutting edge, hot talent", he needs to stop thinking he's in the movie "hackers" and he's looking for Angelina Jolie. Associating dress or style with talent is stupid no matter if it's "you wear a suit, you're smart" or "you've got 3 piercings and drive a crotch rocket you're the next big thing"
Demanding innovation never works. Innovation just happens from a need, not a demand from some Oracle guy who desires it and thinks it'll be good for marketing. There are interesting things happening in Java. Scala is certainly interesting. I haven't used it myself, but I'd love to try it if I had a good project to use it in.
the cutting edge itself has moved on (Score:5, Interesting)
It's no longer language constructs, data structures, or algorithms that are cutting edge. Innovation has moved on to more fertile pastures. Yes, those who build software tools, libraries, IDEs, and compilers will continue to innovate. They have and will continue to come up with some brilliant stuff. But cutting edge developers don't pick a shop because they write in groovy or whatever the language-de-jeur is. Cutting edge developers go where they believe the next killer app is going to be born.
The best developers are multi-lingual. They don't identify with a single programming language. They're not VB developers or Java developers or even Rails developers. They can pick up any language/library/environment quickly. They don't really get off on curly braces versus colons. What feeds the best developers is the challenge of world domination through innovation.
Change the world, right?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It's no longer language constructs, data structures, or algorithms that are cutting edge. Innovation has moved on to more fertile pastures. Yes, those who build software tools, libraries, IDEs, and compilers will continue to innovate.
Hmm.. language conststructs, data structures, or even algorithms are simply much harder to innovate in since they're so basic to software.. but I just don't agree there's no innovation happening in these areas. It just happens with less frequency because it's harder. The pa
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
whatever the language-de-jeur is
I believe you mean language-du-jour.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
He wanted to convey the idea of 'cutting edge', and to be honest it seems like both you and I understood what he meant even if his example is a bit cliche.
I understand what he meant, I just think it's kind of stupid. Call me crazy, but I'd rather focus on keeping a language relevant to the kinds of problems people are trying to solve, not trying to maintain some level of trendiness like the latest cool band.
All languages have a useful lifetime, and Java is no exception. Languages have come a long way sinc
um (Score:5, Informative)
um google app engine? spring? android? gwt? groovy?
Please it's evolving and even finding new uses.
All those "java is going to die" people are silly and not grounded in reality. Plenty of talented developers see its power and use it.
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All those "COBOL is going to die" people are silly and not grounded in reality. Plenty of talented developers see its power and use it.
good coders will follow the money (Score:5, Informative)
good developers will follow the jobs.
i'll save you the trip to monster.com, here are some search results from there:
search results
------ -------
java 5000+
.net 4581
c++ 3706
c# 3369
perl 2569
python 1035
ruby 547
cobol 286
- 5000 is apparently the limit for the number of results a query can provide at monster.com (weak) so there are most likely far more that 5000 java jobs in their database
- couldn't figure out how to search for C reliably, but it's probably up over 5000 as well.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, if you look at smaller data sets (regional ones), and data from other job sites that have language categories, you will notice, that Java tops out even C by a good bit.
Re:good coders will follow the money (Score:4, Funny)
- 5000 is apparently the limit for the number of results a query can provide at monster.com (weak) so there are most likely far more that 5000 java jobs in their database
Yeah. Apparently their java-based search engine runs out of memory at around 5000 results....
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It's evolved beyond those other languages that don't limit population growth, and later crash due to overconsumption.
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Eheh (Score:3, Insightful)
And you are aware most job offerings tend to take the kitchensink approach? "Lets include every word we ever read and then demand 4 years experience with it. iPAd, senior engineer!".
Also (java) matches javascript.
I know you are blowing smoke because PHP is not listed. Oversight or some other reason?
Oh and wouldn't your query also match "Need highly skilled X developer who knows enough Java to migrate us away from the steaming pile of crap?".
Or indicate that there are no good Java developers to be found?
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Re:good coders will follow the money (Score:5, Funny)
So true. Popularity is one of the worst ways to measure interest.
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Popularity isn't a good measure of relevancy?
JVM keeping it alive (Score:5, Interesting)
Java will remain relevant because of the large number of languages being built for the JVM: scala, erjang, clojure, groovy etc. Thus writing libraries in java has significant appeal.
JJ
Nothing screams get off my lawn like this comment (Score:3, Funny)
like to see people with piercings doing Java programming.
The amount of drugs involved in the decision to get said piercings is not conducive to good software engineering.
Here's how to make Java again (Score:5, Funny)
The problem with Java today is... it's syntax looks too much like C. And as everybody knows, C is for geezers. Can't we write java code as follows:
<class>
<classname>MyPony</classname>
<method>Run</method>
<code>
<if><condition>IsExcited</conditon>
<if_block>walkFaster </if_block>
</if>
<method>trot</method>
<method>gallop</gallop>
.
.
etc...
Once the java manufacturing association fixes the syntax to my satisfaction, I'd give up on my 10 GL super auto functional metaprogrammers language (Saufml) and start writing java code. Until then, I'll keep working on my latest NoSql data-store for my soon to be mobile-social-media-empire (leveraging P2P crowd-sourcing) in my beloved Saufml.
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Doesn't this look so much nicer? I almost forgot. You will need a declaration.
<?saufml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<Class>
<ClassName>MyPony</ClassName>
Oracle has some work to do (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Oracle has some work to do (Score:4, Insightful)
However there is lwjgl (opengl/openal binding for java), and most common higher level languages can run on top of a JVM these days. (Jython, JScheme, Kawa, lua,
Tempest, meet teacup... (Score:5, Insightful)
I make a lot of money working with Java. I have piercings. I've been known to have hair in a primary color.
Seriously though. Android applications. Eclipse. Adsense, GMail, Wave - in fact, just about every big Google web application (yes, even the client side stuff is written in Java and translated to Javascript [google.com]). Openfire XMPP. Tomcat. Geronimo. ActiveMQ. Azureus.
You can badmouth Java all you want, but performance and tooling are excellent and there seems to be an infinite supply of libraries and sample code. It runs in lots of different places. There are 100% open source implementations. You can compile it to native code. You can run it in the CLR.
I know it's trendy to play with Ruby and Python, and that's fine. I'm a big fan of Scala, which runs on the JVM. I believe Twitter's backend is at least partially built on Scala [theregister.co.uk]. El Reg, I know, I know.
Anyone who thinks Java is fossilizing needs to give their head a shake. It's everywhere, and it's being used in very diverse ways.
If that doesn't excite this mythical "pierced programmer", then said idiot is too busy practicing the Hipster Doctrine - studied disinterest.
Re:Tempest, meet teacup... (Score:5, Interesting)
I just recently got a job at an all-Java shop. I might, if I feel the need, write a shell script or two. From what I can tell, Java's still accepted in the "real world", but it doesn't have the hype it used to.
Java's Big Thing was its ability to be written once, and run on VMs on any platform. That advantage was promptly killed by the rise of AJAX and all its cross-platform happiness. The same buzz Java once enjoyed is now held by cloud computing, for much the same reason: it allows programmers to write something once, and not worry about the future as much. As languages have progressed, we've consistently moved away from hardware-specific details. Today, I see Java as a sort of middle ground between using the "edgy but immature" languages like Python, and the "old but crusty" languages like C and C++. It has enough libraries and tie-in packages that any modern technology can be easily implemented.
Programmers today don't want to (and shouldn't need to) deal with memory allocation, pointers math, or any such arcane matters. They also don't want to have to refactor as their chosen language tries to stabilize itself. This is why C rose to such prominence. It allowed programmers to stay away from the processor. Java currently allows programmers to stay away from the operating system. Eventually, I expect we'll move toward even more abstract languages, where we just need to specify what we want, and the compiler (or something) will figure out the steps needed to reach that goal. It'll be an automatic software engineer, just as compilers are automatic replacements for the grad students who used to translate programs into machine code.
Here's to the future, where I, too, will be obsolete.
The VM is decent. The language sucks. (Score:5, Informative)
I remember taking a long, hard look at the state of various VMs awhile back, and here's what I came up with: .NET isn't a bad design, but it's entirely controlled by Microsoft.
Rotor doesn't change that at all.
Mono changes it a little, but Mono (at least back then) wasn't really a great platform in its own right -- not enough tools, not enough reason to use it, always playing catch-up. Plus, there's the whole patent issue.
On top of all of that, it was never really designed to be cross-platform, and instead seems to be primarily aimed at creating native apps.
The various "scripting" languages have been moving towards VM architectures, and some are quite good, but none that I know of actually feature any kind of ahead-of-time compilation, even to bytecode. That includes Perl, Python, Ruby, JavaScript, and plenty of others.
Lisps are better, but they generally don't compile to an intermediate form -- if they compile at all, it's to something platform-specific, likely machine code.
Smalltalk is interesting, but is even more closed off than Java, and basically requires an entirely different set of tools for working with. It's not really designed to work as a text-based language.
The closest would seem to be Erlang, but it's radically different. While I know of at least one other language trying to target the Erlang VM, it's something that's really designed to work with Erlang. I'm also not entirely sure if the performance is there.
LLVM looks very, very good, but very few languages actually target it, beyond, say, C. It seems to be targeting runtime optimizations, not portability.
I probably looked at a few others I'm forgetting now...
Basically, the top two are still Java and .NET. Both present a VM that supports multiple real languages. In Java, this is by accident, it's hackish, but there are plenty of robust, mature languages other than Java which target it -- Scala, Groovy, Clojure, JRuby... In .NET, this is by design, but the more interesting other languages targeting it seem to be in an alpha state.
So Java is pretty much it. And it means we can take our fun, dynamic languages, and (eventually) compile them to Java bytecode, and create entirely cross-platform apps with no local dependencies other than Java. It means we get much of the work that's been put into optimizing Java for free -- for example, the Java garbage collector. It also means that even when designing a native app, well, Ruby just got threads in 1.9, and there's still a GIL, so no support for multicore. Python has and probably will always have a GIL. JRuby has had real, native Java threads almost as long as it's existed. Ruby has plenty of options for concurrency, but if you want to take advantage of multicore, your options are either JRuby or a unix fork(), and Ruby's GC is not COW-friendly, so fork() is potentially much more expensive than in other languages.
I don't know if Java is the way forward. I hope someone builds something cool on top of LLVM. I certainly hope Java the language dies. But the JVM is about the best we have in terms of open-source, cross-platform, compile-once-run-anywhere VMs.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't get it, why you want the java language to die? I programming Java now for 4 years and the only thing I'm missing are closures.
The core of Java is very robust, you have class, enums and interfaces. Generics are do what they are suppose to do (and they are backwards compatible). Threading is integrated in the Java with synchronized and the threading API. In addition, Java have neat features like annotations and anonymous classes.
Reflection is very easy to use, but the exception model is perhaps debat
Re:The VM is decent. The language sucks. (Score:4, Insightful)
There are more things, these are just those that irk me most. I love the idea of applets, webstart, and portable bytecode, and I'd love to see Java succeed, but the language is so badly done I can't see this happening.
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If Java get closures, what are you missing in Java?
Others have listed other reasons, but let's see...
It's statically typed. Understand, I don't mind strict typing (Ruby is strictly typed), I just get annoyed at having to declare variable types all the time.
The generics is a mess -- as u17 says, it's a hack, and it's also incredibly difficult to understand, and requires a lot of heavy thinking and planning about types and interfaces. Compare to what you get for free from a language like Ruby.
And most of that mess is in the name of backwards compatibility. Ex
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Both are a problem for code maintainability. Java will never have dynamic typing. It's not that it is hard to implement (e.g. look at bsh an interpreter that is still, basically Java), it's that it has way to many drawbacks. If you want to have that, use a scripting language (and don't use it for large programs).
Re:The VM is decent. The language sucks. (Score:4, Informative)
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Perl has bytecode [xav.com]. Yes, it's experimental, but I've played with it and it works.
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The .NET VM is no less "hackish" than other languages targeted to Java. They both essentially follow the same model for their bytecode.
.NET gives you more primitives, though - byref, unmanaged pointers, structs, unions etc - enough so to write, say, a fully conformant ANSI C implementation targeting it, with practically no dirty hacks (I think you'll need to use exceptions to simulate setjmp/longjmp, but that's pretty much it). Try that for JVM.
Or, say, tailcalls. It's why ML/F# is doable on CLR, but not on JVM.
If anything, the blatant Windows-isms make the CLR far more clunky.
The multitude of references to Win32 concepts in the base CLR spec is definitely annoying, but a portable IL generator can pretty
Oh, now what the hell is this? (Score:4, Interesting)
Ok, so they want to get the love back and show that java is still relevant. Maybe they want some people to expand their skillsets and add java to their toolbox. Well I thought, lets see how heavy this thing has become. I found the necessary magic words to install it on ubuntu from apt. And then: SPLAT! Upon trying to install it, I get this very unfriendly looking licensing message during the install!
Sun is willing to let you install this under the condition that you accept the terms of this 15 PAGE! licensing agreement! In order to install, you must accept the terms, do you accept the DLJ license terms? YES or NO?
If you say NO, then the installation -crashes- and you get prompted again, in a loop asking you to accept the terms again! Ok, after 3 declines, it bails out completely.
You know what? I dont remember that kind of love when I installed PYTHON. Maybe this is what they mean by tough love.
I know how *not* to make it more relevant (Score:5, Insightful)
What they had better NOT do: treat it like Solaris. You're only allowed to use it in production if you have support, and the only support they sell is a site license which costs $25 * the number of people in your company + the number of users for your application.
I'm not being entirely silly. I have an application for which I would have been willing to pay for Java support. But the only support Sun would sell us (late 2009, when they had already started Oraclizing) was an unreasonably expensive site-wide support contract.
Who cares? (Score:3, Insightful)
This question is ask as if Java is somehow imporant in and of itself. It isnt. Neither is perl, or PHP, Phython or gasp - C++ or even C. Throw C#, F# and VB into that group as well.
These are tools. We (as in devleopers) should simply use the right tool for the job. If thats Java - then okey-dokey. If its C#, then groovy, if its C++ then thats ok to. Hey, I still use assembly language for a few things.
Do real engineering work folks! Pick the right tools for the job based on the business and technical requirements.
-Foredecker
Re: (Score:3)
If thats Java - then okey-dokey.
If its C#, then groovy, if its C++ then thats ok to.
This doesn't make sense. If Java is the right tool, then I should use "okey-dokey", if C# is the right tool, I should use Groovy, and if C++ is the right tool (is it ever, though?) then it would be ok to use Thats?
What the... FUDFUDFUD (Score:3, Interesting)
As far as I know, pretty much every “enterprise” server software still in written in Java, and hence the developer base is gigantic. I mean just look at the job offers. 9 out of 10 say Java, the last time I looked.
What is he talking about?? Does he even know anything about what he is supposed to manage?
Lemmings (Score:5, Insightful)
I was just by the Apple Store in Palo Alto, CA. There are people lined up for the iPad launch, some sleeping in tents. Three TV stations are covering the waiting line. Reminds me of Apple's "Lemmings' video. [youtube.com]
Actually, the state of the art in programming languages still sucks. The mindset that "it has to be unsafe to go fast" is so deeply entrenched in the C/C++ community that fixable problems aren't fixed, and as a result, millions of programs still crash every day. The "virtual machine" thing has resulted in ".NET", a virtual machine for x86 only. The "scripting language" approach is useful, but fanatical late-binding coupled with naive interpreters makes for very slow execution, as with Python. Few mainstream languages do concurrency well; the notion that concurrency is the operating system's problem results in pain for all concerned.
Looked at that way, Java isn't bad. Memory safety is good. There are efficient compilers. There's some language support for concurrency. It's not too weird, and not too theoretical. Java is mediocre, but better than most of the alternatives when you need to get large amounts of work done.
Young developers (Score:5, Interesting)
Java attracted the young developers because more experienced ones had already watched the "new next thing" come and go too many times to be blinded by the hype. Many of them realized that the whole bytecode, write once run anywhere was done in 1969 (p-code) and that if those hyping Java didn't know that, they didn't have enough experience to know if it was good or not. If they did know that then they were liars. Of course, the p-code interpreter fit on a single sided floppy with room to spare and ran acceptably on a 6502....
It is amazing to me the way the hype machine strapped JATOs on that pig and sorta made it fly, but that can only last so long.
Now with Java in the clutches of the enterprise people who are the leading source of anti-cool, it doesn't stand a chance.
Re:Young developers (Score:4, Interesting)
Java got off because of several reasons, system became so complex and distributed that C++ simply was a sure tool to make such a project fail, and java was very simple back then but could pull off things which C++ was not able to in a decent matter of time only with a few locs.
The other issue was Smalltalk, ParcPlace single handedly killed with a stupid business move the entire Smalltalk market, they bought the most popular Smalltalk vendor on the PC side, Digitalk promised to unify their apis and the Digitalk ones and what happened was that they killed digitalk never fullfilled their promise, it did not help either that Digitalk was the cheap kid on the block why ParcPlaces Smalltalk did cost a fortune. Add to that some infighting at ParcPlace which drove important people away and a load of Smalltalk programming companies gotten burned and you had the perfect fiasco, which even IBM with their Smalltalk could not fix anymore.
Java was just heavens sent for those companies, while not as powerful as Smalltalk and in its infancy, it was the perfect next choice.
Funny thing is, that Smalltalk already had most things in place which languages like Ruby etc... try now to achieve, but in my opinion in a leaner and more thought out manner.
improve the JVM bytecode (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:improve the JVM bytecode (Score:5, Insightful)
but but but (Score:3, Interesting)
Guido says [blogspot.com] you [souja.net] don't [wordpress.com] need [blogspot.com] it! (/me ducks)
Erlang programmers might disagree ;-)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually I personally think the bytecode level is in need for a serious overhaul, while it is not bad, it has served us well with gradual improvements it has some weak points.
One is being addressed with J7, invokedynamic.
But its weakest point still is a missing real class hotplugging system, they wanted to tackle it for J7 but could not because of hotspot.
In the meanwhile we have to live with workarounds, like dynamic class recompilation in the runtime which introduces unwanted proxies, workarounds on class
Modern-day COBOL (Score:3, Insightful)
'Java has evolved from a groundbreaking, revolutionary language platform to something closer to a modern-day version of Cobol'
So Java has gone from immature, constantly changing and buggy to stable, reliable and fast? I can see how that would be a problem for somebody that wants to attract unexperienced scriptkiddies to a programming language.
The whole point (Score:4, Insightful)
Java has evolved from a groundbreaking, revolutionary language platform to something closer to a modern-day version of Cobol.
The whole reason why Java enjoys the widespread popularity that it has is precisely because of that. Most projects aren't made by "trendy" guys in a basement somewhere - they're made by corporations, most of them not exactly small, who value predictability and the peace of mind that comes with it over new & trendy.
The advantage of Java there is that it is a well-known quantity, and it has been in that state for a while, with few changes. There are many development tools, all top-notch, with code editing features unmatched by IDEs for any other language. There is a huge amount of useful code in third-party libraries, most of them under liberal (free, non-copyleft) licenses. There is a large workpool, and it's going to remain that way for some time to go.
There's nothing wrong with that. It's a niche that has to be filled, and Java is doing remarkably well in doing so. Don't fix what's not broken.
And in the meantime, the trendy guys always have Groovy, Scala etc to play with.
Java aint going anywhere (Score:4, Insightful)
Java (specifically J2EE with an Oracle or similar database back-end) seems to be second only to .NET/ASP.NET/C#/VB.NET with SQL Server in terms of jobs I see when I look on the job sites here in Australia.
Plus Java is still the #1 mobile language. Not just on Android but on the 1000s of feature phones out there running various incompatible versions of J2ME for applications (I have owned 3 feature phones, all of which have supported Java apps in some form)
Java on the desktop is dead (if it was ever anything but stillborn in the first place). Java for client side web development died and got replaced with ActiveX, Flash and other technologies.
But Java in the enterprise and mobile spaces is far from dead.
If anything, Oracle should be pushing J2EE even harder (Oracle is the dominant choice of database to use alongside J2EE)
Who cares? (Score:3, Insightful)
Who cares if Java is cool or not? It's getting a lot of actual work done. In fact, there's a crap load more stuff getting done in Java than Ruby or 'The Cloud' or whatever is supposed to be cool these days. In the end, 'coolness' has absolutely no engineering benefits whatsoever.
The fact that Java has lasted as long as it has and is as prevalent as it is now is testament to its ability to GetShitDone(tm). ...along with a lot of other useful languages which are useful regardless of whether some hack or slashdot group-think thinks it's trendy or not.
Never Revolutionary, but Still Relevant (Score:4, Insightful)
Java is not and never has been groundbreaking and revolutionary. All the features people used to tout about Java back in the day were things that existed before it. A lot of smart people have poured a lot of effort in research related to Java, and the platform has grown stronger as a result, but even most of that seems to be just re-implementing existing ideas for Java.
However, that by no means implies that Java isn't relevant. It has certainly taken the software world by storm, and, as far as I can see, Java is still going strong. People are taking Java courses left and right, either to learn it for the first time or to deepen their understanding. There are so many Java projects that it's hard to find something for those in our company who would prefer to use something else. Even with .NET being backed by a company whose products usually get adopted as a matter of course, I don't see nearly as much demand for .NET knowledge as for Java. Java irrelevant? It sure doesn't seem that way to me.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I agree with this. Oracle will have to do some serious sucking up to the world to convince anyone they are not out to destroy everything that MS licensing was unable to touch. I'm not saying that Oracle sucks, just that their business model is not really where the world has been migrating to lately. For more or less all the reasons that MS products are not looking so good these days to many people, Oracle products (including the products they buy) will also not look good. There is reason to think this looks
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Can you be specific about these inconsistencies? I'd like to hear about them.
As for "letting it die", Java is the default language of enterprise everything. Outside of the embedded world, there's probably more lines of Java currently deployed than anything else. And I have to say, Spring 3.x is actually pretty neat.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
As for "letting it die", Java is the default language of enterprise everything.
He's just part of the Java backlash because it's popular. It's like the people 15 years ago saying "Let C die" because there's C++ or Java now. An essentially useless comment and nothing more than a troll.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You're mostly right. Back in the 90's Sun was so successful in hyping Java I remember VC's funding software companies _just_ because they were focusing on Java. Got it into a lot of (maybe all?) schools too. So damn near every young developer knows Java now and as a result that language gets chosen over others.
So yeah, letting it die might not work, we'll have to be more proactive.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
My University only has two programming courses: C++ and Java
That's terrible. No Prolog? No Lisp? No functional programming language at all? No assembly, for that matter? And what about parallel programming languages? I must have learned about a dozen languages at my university (not all of them very thoroughly, mind you).
The same is true of Cobol (Score:5, Insightful)
The enterprise sector is spectacular at painting itself into corners. Java isn't the first instance of that, and it certainly won't be the last. So yeah, Java isn't going anywhere as far as enterprise is concerned. But neither is Cobol or Fortran or many other moribund technologies.
The rest of us can sensibly let all of that die.
As for inconsistencies, how many mutually incompatible versions of Java are there? How many revamps compared to languages stewarded by standardization bodies or other neutral actors? (C has, what, 3 over it's 40 years of history?)
I'd say that the best thing Oracle could do for Java would be to give it to ISO, but I think it's 10 years too late. I'd love to be surprised, though.
Re:The same is true of Cobol (Score:4, Insightful)
The enterprise sector is spectacular at painting itself into corners.
What are some of the alternatives? Is .Net not worse of a corner? And at ``enterprise'' level, pretty much everything turns to crap anyway, and as far as crap is concerned, Java is usually easier to deal with than say... poorly written Perl (I'm a big Perl fan, but I've seen the code written at a fortune500 corp, and... well... it's unmaintainable crap written by a cobol programmer).
Would C/C++ be a better alternative for internal apps? Unlikely!
Would Python? Perl? PHP? I doubt it. Primarily 'cause nobody who writes such enterprise apps would really know what they're doing (consider folks who've worked at a corp for last 15 years).
Yeah, everything most enterprises need should be web-based anyways---but the guts behind that would still be... what? VB.NET? Heh!
Obviously there are different definitions of ``enterprise.'' But if YOU had to pick a language for some internal app with a dozen or so existing developers (all of whom know Java, some of whom know other languages), which language would you pick? [throw in assumption that you need to run it on a unix-like platform]
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
As for inconsistencies, how many mutually incompatible versions of Java are there?
Isn't extreme backward compatibility the reason Java gets most often bashed for? For what I know, any 1.1 source code should compile fine under java 1.7 (unless you used something like "assert" as a symbol name, but even then you should get away by using the -source switch for the compiler).
How many revamps compared to languages stewarded by standardization bodies or other neutral actors? (C has, what, 3 over it's 40 years of history?)
I'd say that the best thing Oracle could do for Java would be to give it to ISO, but I think it's 10 years too late. I'd love to be surprised, though.
To be honest, every single C compiler out there defines its own incompatible implementation of C. That's because the standards move so slowly that every manufacturer tends to put its own custom features in his compiler.
Re:What is out there right now? (Score:5, Funny)
So what do people with piercings do now?
Work at Starbucks.
Re:What is out there right now? (Score:5, Funny)
So what do people with piercings do now?
Work at Starbucks.
Java engineers.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Never mind the people. I just want to see those piercings doing Java programming.
Re:Well this is awkward (Score:5, Insightful)
None. Learn algorithms, data structures, and theory. You can and will change languages a half dozen or more times in your career. Theory works for everything. And the good employers know that.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Wow, you don't know anything about anything do you?
Java has been executing native machine code for well over a decade!
Are you some kind of unfrozen coder who was accidentally frozen in the mid 90's and was recently unthawed?
Re:Java isn't pure OO (Score:4, Insightful)
The thing I hated most about Java is that I can't just create a new class and implement a few messages and use it in existing code, unless I somehow shoehorn it into an existing class hierarchy, or implement an interface. If the existing code was done without interfaces in mind, I have to edit a few hundred methods in dozens (if lucky) of files, and not break anything.
To avoid this I have to over-engineer prototype code, and increase production cost estimates by at least a factor of 4, or else use a generating framework that leaves me with no idea what any of the generated code does, which makes fixing subtle bugs so much fun.
At least smalltalk works. And the smalltalk debugger is possibly the most elegant and efficient ever.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Personal pet peeves for Java:
1. int/float are not treated as classes. Okay, only a minor peeve.
2. Classes wrapping the basic datatypes and string are finalized. This one is a major peeve.
3. Operator overloading is not allowed and the designers of Java clearly stated it never will because operator overloading is just pure evil and no sane programmer should ever, ever want to do operator overloading, for no reason whatsoever. The standard String class uses operator overloading.
4. The library is an inconsistan
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It's all about Balls - risk taking, competition, innovation.
The computer is a new and novel device. It is probably more important than the wheel, perhaps less important than fire (with all the chat about cooking being a primary driver for evolutionary change in humans). Your view of the correct set up and instruction set for computing may be correct, but surely you would be the first to admit that if it is then you have been strikingly prescient. In my view the use cases for computers are far from decided,
I don't care what you say (Score:3, Interesting)
The One True Instruction Set was the PDP-11's.
la-la-la-la-la-la-la...
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"It was never groundbreaking and revolutionary."
Of course not, it was not because it was explicitly designed not to be all that. It was supposed to be a small well defined language that brought good OO practices and GC to the mass market of C/C++ programmers - hence it syntax. For this to happen, it needed also to be relatively fast during execution.
As for all the politics, I am highly surprised by the way you think the market moves. The development market moves because it sees something useful. After that