Seems like an interesting effort. A developer is building an alternative Java-based backend to Lemmy’s Rust-based one, with the goal of building in a handful of different features. The dev is looking at using this compatibility to migrate their instance over to the new platform, while allowing the community to use their apps of choice.
I have higher hopes. Java is three times more developers than Rust (https://www.statista.com/statistics/793628/worldwide-developer-survey-most-used-languages/), and you can see in this thread a number of people saying they could contribute as they know Java and not Rust.
Let’s hope for the best.
Just peeking at the source code and it all looks like pretty standard stuff. Looks just like apps I’ve worked on at several jobs.
Is it sexy? No. But a lot of people have experience with this and could help develop.
Only time will tell if this project pays off though
Java is a corporate language that most devs hate. Rust (Lemmy) is more popular as a hobby language that devs enjoy hacking in for fun.
Hm, Java is hated by devs, but still 2nd language on GitHub with 11,7% of the total code hosted, while Rust is number 13 with 1,8%?
https://madnight.github.io/githut/#/pull_requests/2023/4
Stockholm syndrome.
And even more, the Lemmy codebase doesn’t really have any important developers besides the two main devs: https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/graphs/contributors.
Even looking at the contributions to something like Mbin, which has been around for much shorter, you already see 6 people with more than 50 commits, while Lemmy has one
https://github.com/MbinOrg/mbin/graphs/contributors
We have 13 contributors with Sublinks so far. I expect more will come after the announcement.
Java devs like you need to step away from the PC and stop assaulting the world with a terrible language. You should be ashamed of yourselves for inflicting decades of misery on the world.
Java will go the way of COBOL. The future is Nim.
I’m pretty sure Nutomic was a Java dev before starting work on Lemmy and learning Rust from scratch. That by itself should already speak volumes.
One-Up projects like this rarely ever turn out well, that’s from my own experiences. Even though this isn’t a popular view, I still think I’m right on this one, we can circle back in say, 6 months, to see if my predictions are right.
it it common to announce a ‘major rewrite’ without having it complete?
i mean, at the moment, theres little to discern it from lemmy at the moment… why make a big public proclamation about it before you even touch the front end?
To get contributors to the backend?
i guess. i would think there are better avenues looking for devs though
That is true, I used to be an Android developer and then learned Rust by writing code for Lemmy. Are you by any chance my new stalker?
And if we’re comparing the languages, the fact alone that there are no Nullpointerexceptions makes Rust infinitely better than Java for me. I also agree that this sort of copycat project will soon be forgotten. For example have you ever heard of Rustodon?
I also was a professional java dev, and also had to use spring boot in most corporate environments.
I don’t wanna knock anyone’s re-write, because I know how difficult it is to dissuade someone when they’re excited about a project. But to me, starting a new project or doing a rewrite, is the best opportunity to learn a newer, better language. We taught ourself Rust by coding lemmy, and I recently learned Kotlin / jetpack compose because I wanted to learn android development. Learning new languages is not an issue for most programmers; we have to learn new frameworks and languages every year or so if we want to keep up.
This is potentially hundreds of hours of wasted time that could be spent on other things. Even if someone absolutely hates Rust and doesn’t want to contribute to the massive amount of open issues on Lemmy, there are still a lot of front-ends that could use more contributors.