Lol, as Javanese, It’s funny that Javanese ethnic name -> Javanese coffee -> Javanese programming language.
People still keep thinking that I was a programmer or making a typo of Japanese everytime I mention I speak Javanese.
The language was initially called Oak after an oak tree that stood outside
Things could have been a lot different!
Oakscript does have a certain ring to it
“fucking oak what the fuck” still works so not that different
Java is IMHO one of the most underrated platforms outside of enterprise environments.
Most people also forget, that Java is not only a language, but also a platform, an ecosystem and active research is applied to many parts of Java.
Concerning Oracle: OpenJDK is actively supported by very different but big and capable companies (IBM, Amazon, Eclipse Foundation…). The quality of the language, libraries and documentation needs people which are payed to work on this, full time.
Bring to this the free IDEs one can get for Java - Eclipse and Netbeans are a little bit old school, but offer everything to build/debug and develop complex software.
Java is not my favorite programming language, but when I want to write interesting software and ensure it will be running for the next decade w/o significant changes, Java is really hard to beat.
Of course, in hindsight we know how to do a lot of things better as they were done in Java. Still, what other open source Language/Platform/documentation with the backing of capable companies and really independent and interoperable builds are out there?
One last note to all people which were damaged by Java in university or school: Usually the teachers/professors/lecturers have no real world experience of software development besides the usually university projects, and for the usual university projects which basically means getting small to midsize projects to run Java is total overkill.
Don’t confuse this with real world software projects in the industry, which are mission critical and need to work a decade from now on. Java was always a bread and butter language, but one which learned from other languages and even the verbosity makes sense, once one dives into code written a few years back by another person.
Usually the teachers/professors/lecturers have no real world experience of software development besides the usually university projects
Adding to this: university projects are built on a relatively short timeframe compared to many industry projects. The growing pains that typically occur after a few years of continuous development is unlikely with the small scale of university projects.
I wouldn’t go to a university professor for advice on how to build a system that will last a decade of development.
My 2 cents is that it would have flourished a lot longer if eclipse wasn’t stretched so thin like using a very thick amorphous log that is somehow still brittle? And ugly? As a bookmark.
I keep Java installed for one thing and one thing only… modded Minecraft.
I liked Java a lot more before Oracle acquired Sun. I’ve used Oracle databases enough to hate Oracle with the passion of a supernova.
I think I need to clear a common misconception people seem to have here: Oracle has very little to do with Java.
At most, Oracle has the following connection to Java:
- Own the trademark
- Have a build of the JDK/JRE with commercial support.
However, Java as a language’s baseline comes from OpenJDK, an open source (GPL 2.0) community project which is upstream to several builds including Oracle’s JVM. It follows a “bazaar” like development model similar to the Linux kernel where you can see their mailing lists and track what’s being worked on. Anyone can contribute and the code is on Github: https://github.com/openjdk/jdk.
That being said, you don’t even need to use Oracle’s JDK (it sucks IMO) and use one of the community provided builds of OpenJDK. OpenJDK builds are provided by Eclipse, Amazon, Azul, Bellsoft and even Microsoft provides JDK/JRE builds. These are free of cost and have longer term support than Oracle’s offering.
Open jdk is where it’s at
Yep, thanks to the AdoptOpenJDK project which really helped make OpenJDK builds available for all platforms. (It is now called Eclipse Temurin and Adoptium.)
Java was stagnating under Sun, unfortunately. I hate to say it, but Oracle probably saved Java.
But!.. Sun Java included internationalized set of Lucida fonts with proper hinting. Oracle removed that for whatever reason.
Haha. I guess I never noticed.
I attribute Java’s uptake to a large amount of marketing and support, which led to a massive ecosystem. Even a mediocre language like this one can find success when propped up like that.
OOP was hype during the 90s. Schools adapted their curriculum to this trend. So they needed a programming language for this, and Java became the choice. C++ is too tricky as a first language.
The result is that a lot of people knew Java, which means it’s a good choice of language if you want to recruit programmers.
I believe most of Java’s success was luck. It released at the perfect time.
OOP makes so much sense. What happened?
The AbstractionBubbleFactory popped
AbstractionBubbleBuilderFactoryStrategyImplementation mind you
Many people increasingly find that using functional patterns enables them to build more reliable software.
I don’t think OOP is as bad as many people make it out to be. It’s perfectly fine in moderation.
The problem is that it can lead to over engineered applications when abused.
You don’t think the $500 million marketing budget Sun put towards Java has anything to do with its success? It was more than just luck.
I don’t think the $500 million marketing budget would’ve worked if Java was introduced at a time other than the 90s.
The 80s would’ve been too early. It would just turn into a parenthesis in programming language history (next to smalltalk). The 00s would’ve been too late. It would’ve missed the dotcom bubble boat. Java came in the right time to become a dominant programming language.
I’m not saying the marketing didn’t have any influence. It probably had an big influence in which OOP language was selected for computer science education.
Java was the new hotness when I was in the middle of my comp sci degree. The biggest benefit I found was javadocs. Other languages had shit documentation that usually didn’t match reality in comparison.
Yes. JavaDoc was/is good.
There, I said something nice about Java. I’m giving myself a gold star, and going to stop typing.
JVM isn’t mediocre. Really-really.
I don’t like something aesthetically about Java, can’t quite nail what, and don’t like long-long namespace strings, but these are my personal limitations.
Ah. I also don’t like OOP.
I am going to be decapitated for this, but you’re totally right.
You only have to look at Rust. An horrible language with a massive hype machine and an army of zealots pushing it everywhere.
I can’t understand how people are complaining about the java boiler plate and its verbosity, while promoting Rust every time they can.
For me it’s the tooling surrounding it that makes it nice.
Yes, that’s part of the ecosystem. :)
Unlike other older languages, such as Cobol and Fortran – which are still used, but almost always in legacy projects – Java has constantly evolved to meet new demands while maintaining backward compatibility.
can’t speak on the FORTRAN claim but with COBOL this couldn’t be less true. last i checked the newest Enterprise COBOL LTS is newer than Java’s
The difference is people still write Java, regardless of whether it’s a dated pos or not, so the use cases have evolved
Then there’s the use of the JVM/JRE which have evolved even more due to Scala, Clojure & Kotlin
COBOL is still being updated because, believe it or not, people are still writing COBOL
People aren’t writing new projects in COBOL. It’s mostly to maintain 40+ year old systems. Unless you’re working in the bank sector, it’s unlikely you will write a program in COBOL.
Don’t forget this small sector called government. Loads of Cobol there.
And Java is very much considered legacy in the vast majority of projects that use it.
Then it would not be constantly evolving with more than a new release per year. Do you know anything about gigantic Java ecosystem? Guessed so …
Yeah, I know that the vast majority of Java applications out there are stuck on ancient versions of the JVM and spew back traces in their logs as if they bought them in bulk.
I think Java was first released just after I graduated. I do program Java at my day job though, and I don’t mind it. It has its quirks but I find I can express myself using Java, but I probably try to think towards much in OO paradigms when I design and code.
Removed by mod
For your information, since java 10, 2018, 7 years ago, it’s
var thing = Thinglike most languages.You should update your java knowledge.
Removed by mod
Just saw: they’re changing it back because you don’t appreciate it enough :(
You can do
var thing = new Thing();now.
A language I wish would die already, but there are still vendors that program in it, along with freaking Tomcat hosted applications. EduTech is still stuffed to the gills with it.
fucking tomcat and jboss…🤮
There’s always Kotlin. Of course I never understood the desirability of a VM language in the first place, why not just compile for different architecture?
“Write once, run anywhere” is a pipe dream but Java came closer than anyone else by far.
It can help with standardization and some security benefits to run things in the JVM, part of the reason it’s so popular in enterprise
JIT compiling and byte code morphing and instrumentation. For instance data base persistence is usually done by instrumentation tools, that add instructions to keep track about transactions and modified objects, or new objects that need persisting. And endless more things.
There’s also Groovy. A data execution pipeline program I use called NextFlow uses Groovy based scripts.
And compiling for different architectures can be very difficult. I’ve done a lot of work Power9 computers and it’s not as simple as having the right compiler flags. Often the dependencies aren’t built for your platform either so you have to go and compile those too. It can be quite a hassle.
This dude came to my spouses work to do some sort of work/help (I don’t know the exact details) and someone wrote a doc he needed to review. It was a lot of work not just like a few notes but a proper doc and all he wrote back upon “reviewing” it was a thumbs up emoji!! 👍🏻 everyone was shocked lol, no feed back, no notes nothing just 👍🏻
👍
I used Java years ago for Android dev, but stopped when I stopped doing that. Every once in a while I’ll get the itch to work on a new project, and always wonder if Java would be a good idea.
My hesitance is that I don’t trust Oracle (and don’t know to what extent they’re involved nowadays), I’m not familiar enough with the ecosystem to know what is legacy crap to avoid, and I think it’s generally seen as an uncool language, and I’m way too cool to be taking such risks.
If you want to do something java like, try Kotlin. Its a more modern take on java and not developed by Oracle
I’m so grateful for Kotlin, it gets rid of so much of the annoyances in Java.
Kotlin is very similar to C# in my opinion.
It’s a happy middle ground for me
Ironic considering C# was supposed to be very similar to Java
Its called Microsoft Java for a reason
Kotlin is now the language of choice for Android.
Rather Dart and Flutter.
Until Google kills it
Oracle has nearly nothing to do with Java. OpenSDK is developed by the Apache Foundation.
java was my 5th language, having just missed it as the AP CS language in highschool by a year. oddly i could not get behind such a massive standard library having come from BASIC, Pascal C++, ASM, VHDL. now after 30 years of programing i write Java web services for a living. feels strange.
Oddly, I did know some BASIC and I have vague memories of the numeric line starters like 10 with white text on a black background giving it a retro feel.
It’s been interesting seeing the changes as they happened over time working with java pretty often for a good chunk of that time. The jvm and jit performance improvements, syntax changes and additional jep features added vs what was left out, tools for running and managing jvms, Sun & Oracle shooting themselves in the foot repeatedly, new jvm languages with scala, groovy, clojure, etc and their impact on java. I prefer other languages and tool chains for some cases, but java has been pretty good for building reliable, upgradable, extendable systems that get the job done & have a good large stable library.
Hadouken handshake
Fuck Oracle.
One Rich Asshole Called Lary Ellison
His political contributions are really on brand. He funded election deniers in 2022.
Also I’ve heard Oracle has a bad reputation when it comes to government contracts, very expensive poor quality software ripping off our taxpayers. I think they ought to be blacklisted or at-least require extra review due to their reputation. CUNY paid Oracle over $600 million and look at what that got them: https://pscbc.blogspot.com/2013/03/cuny-first-computer-system-to-aid.html. To be fair the article does claim that “The project required an expenditure of up to a billion dollars to do it right. CUNY Central offered far less. All but one of the bidders dropped out as a result”. I’m confused why it needs to be so expensive, even $600 million seems like way too much.
Lary Ellison is one of the richest men in the world right and owns some kind of private island or something that he bought basically after showing his shares of Oracle stock?
30 years of pain
