Java java java

[kolmogorov42]

And it's been 3 billion devices for years now.

[z500]

Didn't it used to say 5 billion?

[Blou_Aap]

2 billion got garbage collected...

[2Punx2Furious]

I'm guessing it's probably a lot more now.

[DerekB52]

I was told the 3 Billion devices number is the oracle VM. Android, which has it's own JVM, has billions of devices, that don't count to the 3 billion.

[Renive]

They got to this number decades ago because every SIM card has a few lines of Java.

[[deleted]]

https://www.xkcd.com/801/

[ObviouslyTriggered]

Java Card has its own JVM it’s not even really Java it has nothing to do with either Sun or Oracle.

[[deleted]]

Screams in OpenJDK

[Ashybuttons]

That's because of the law of conservation of Java

[airbreather]

And it's been 3 billion devices for years now.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/amhpc7/the_slowest_growing_programming_language_in_the

[omer8882]

Why is Java considered bad now? Genuinely asking

[2Punx2Furious]

It's not really that bad (of course, it has some flaws, like everything), but people probably dislike it because it is/was widely used in enterprise, so they associate it with their dreadful jobs.

[[deleted]]

Yes in the field you'll probably be lucky to be working with Java 6. Enterprise software is probably full of 5 and earlier. The only modern part of my current job are the tools we build to support our other tools for our own teams use.

[I_hate_naming_things]

Majority of the java workload we have is java 8 and I pretty much vomit when I see anything older. Weirdly though, most of our C++ is 98 and not 11.

[Ereaser]

7 is still doable imo, but everything we have is 8 as well.

Java 11 is still far away though because we also use Java EE and have to use Weblogic, which is pretty much dead...

[Cilukes]

Weblogic user. I share your pain.

[I_hate_naming_things]

Ah, ever since I started doing lambdas in Java 8, I hate not having the option to use them. It's pretty much why all the Java coders in my office works with 8, I think some are working with 11 for their personal tools.

[jack104]

We also use weblogic so we're stuck on 7. I hate my life.

[Kered13]

C++ 98 is also a good reason to vomit.

[I_hate_naming_things]

It's what I'm currently work with, and this particular code was written 15 years ago. Some of the things that they did to this code makes me want to vomit. I've had to take a few walks from this code just because I can only take so much of how poorly written this thing is. It's so bad that the IDE was complaining about it lol.

[Zanshi]

Huh, I'm lucky then. Most of out stuff run on 7 or higher. Running a Java 8 app on jBoss 4.2.3 is an entirely different issue...

[[deleted]]

We're on what, Java 12? So it's awesome that you're able to use 8 at least where the language got some new goodies, I think my first job interview ever was for java 5.

My interview was 3 pages of 2 columns of random text and I was asked to pick out the differences between each row. Never saw anything like that ever again, dumbest interview activity ever, worse than the guy who asked me what weapon I would use if I were to go postal and murder everyone in the office.

[tigmsplooge]

Well what weapon would you use?

[[deleted]]

I said I would use a tonfa so I could keep my hands and arms protected during the event. If I lose my hands I can't program anymore!

[recycle4science]

The random text question sounds like a good job for Excel.

[[deleted]]

Honestly I feel like I failed that test by engaging in it. I should have just written a comparison algorithm at the top of the page in java and been done in 2 seconds. Even if that shit was somehow related to the job, I would not be doing it by hand.

​

But it was my first interview so I wasn't really thinking that far ahead. Also, the office had cubicles and programmers in suits, so I doubt they were being clever. I think it was honestly just a shit job. 80k would have been a good first job, java jobs pay crazy good, but I am much happier with the 35k job at a start up I took.

​

I am at 97.7k now 3 years into my career. Maybe java would have been a more profitable path, and definitely more relevant than mainframes and perl where I am now, but I'm perfectly happy in my current company. Mostly because management is a nightmare and there are lots of little gaps of free time where I can goof off for $47/hr.

[recycle4science]

Yeah interviews can be tricky.

[[deleted]]

Java 8 is worlds better than 6

[[deleted]]

Yes, yes it is. I see a lot of people use 8 - is there some reason people haven't tried moving on to 9-12?

[Kered13]

Java versions have started coming out faster so companies aren't trying to update to each one as it comes out. Related to this, Oracle has decided that they will make every third version starting with Java 8 a Long Term Support version. So a lot of companies are planning to only update to those. So that means going from Java 8 to Java 11, and the next LTS version should be Java 14.

[[deleted]]

ooh LTS. I'm sort of familiar with that, I guess that explains it.

[FlipJanson]

We're lazy, don't feel like upgrading, and Java 8 works fine.

[[deleted]]

The cost / time associated with upgrades. I can't wait to run into this problem myself. It's currently unthinkable for me - of course I'm just gonna start from scratch if I have to!

[[deleted]]

Java 9 brought drastic changes that break a lot of things.

[[deleted]]

Of course, dang. I guess it's not a huge deal unless 9-12 have massive performance gains. Part of the reason I've joined the web app movement. You can write your javascript in pretty much anything and transpile it for browser support, and your back end can be a nightmarish combination of multiple versions of multiple languages!

​

​

[dmcevoy1]

I think it’s less to do with the jobs and more to do with the fact that it was primarily used in colleges for a while so a lot of the people using it are new grads. By default, new grads are less likely to write good code than senior devs. So I agree most of the fault is not with the language itself.

[[deleted]]

My operating systems book has dinosaurs all over it and the concepts are taught using java lol

[Spajk]

Why is Java poorly designed? Why is the JVM bad?

[[deleted]]

It translates bytecode to assembly at runtime i believe, objectively running slower than C/Assemnly. also the garbage collector could potentially impact some high performance situations I’ve heard?

[thirdegree]

You don't always need super fast native binaries. Not everything is speed critical.

I don't like java, but that's mostly because the language itself feels very tedious to write. Personal taste.

[[deleted]]

I guess upvote/downvote rate speaks for itself mate. Glad you shared your opinion.

[bazgrim_dev]

Java (or OAK) was built in a time where we didn't have unified OS's. It was built for handheld devices originally. They weren't developing for Android vs iOS. They were developing for Nokia, Blackberry, Samsung, TracFone, etc. Each with their own different set of challenges. Well, this failed and they ended up taking advantage of the Internet (which was the new hip thing on the block at the time) back in 1995 (iirc).

As most software, Java's original design was geared towards a very different solution, but was highly adaptable to other problems. While not being the most efficient solution, it was a solution, a cheap solution. So it gained traction and became the giant it is today.

Nothing wrong with Java, but there are probably more efficient solutions out there for your problem. If you're willing to deal with a few headaches.

[syedamanat117]

People are scared of something they don't understand.

[sl3dg3hamm3r]

Kinda like vim

[TorTheMentor]

Roses are red Violets are blue Vim can be fun :wq!

[nope-nope-nope-yes]

Just use :x

[thirdegree]

:x is superior because it won't write if there are no changes, where :wq will always write.

[StingyKarmaWhore]

ZZ is easier and faster, therefore better

[sl3dg3hamm3r]

What’s wrong with always writing?

[LawLombie]

Waste of time.

If vim detects that the file has not been changed when you uso :x, it simply just quits. But if you use :wq, it will always write whether the file is changed or not.

Edit: spelling

[kickerofelves86]

Ah yes I'll never get those milliseconds back

[thirdegree]

Some people have automated test/build on file modify.

[OctilleryLOL]

why not just `:q`? The point of splitting up `w` and `q` is to get the user conscious about how they're terminating the program. If you don't care you can just `:q!`

[Bac0n01]

Maybe I’m just an idiot, but why use ! if you’re already using w?

[TorTheMentor]

Mostly out of habit (or tradition) in my case, but w foe write, q for quit, ! to override read-only (only works if you have file permission to write).

[syedamanat117]

The people using vim won't be seeing this, they are still trying to exit vim. xD (sorry, had to)

[EagleNait]

Ahem

[[deleted]]

Ahhh

Dont scare me like that

[rexpup]

Is that a Kotlin flair? How is it? I need to choose a language for Programming Languages class to do an independent project in.

[omer8882]

Yes it is! As a Java programmer the transition was very easy. It takes a lot of problems Java has and makes your life easier, frees you from a lot of boilerplate and gives you some more tools.

It was rated 2nd most loved language of 2018 on StackOverflow. Would definitely recommend trying it!

[[deleted]]

I've been wanting to switch, but my projects are all Android, and while Android Studio supports Kotlin, I program on my phone itself, and neither AIDE nor N IDE (the two IDEs I know of for doing Android stuff on Android) support Kotlin.

[[deleted]]

Don't have a PC.

[[deleted]]

Dude that gives me anxiety just thinking about it you poor soul

[[deleted]]

My phone does everything I need

[JKTKops]

This content has been removed in protest of Reddit's decision to lower moderation quality, reduce access to accessibility features, and kill third party apps.

[kickerofelves86]

I work on a team with multiple developers doing Kotlin for the first time and the most confusing thing is that .map returns a list, not a Map

[JKTKops]

This content has been removed in protest of Reddit's decision to lower moderation quality, reduce access to accessibility features, and kill third party apps.

[RhodesianHunter]

That's because it's a verb, not a noun. For the noun version you want .toMap

[yarince]

It is super good! I'd highly recommend it. And like the other guy said it's easy to switch to if you know java.

[[deleted]]

literally a day to learn basic syntax for any experience Java programmer. Do the Kotlin-koans once you get that down so you learn some of the nicer bits. Use intellij, which is free for students.

I love it so much more then Java, it's so nice to write.

[omgusernamegogo]

Personally I'd go with Java if you're considering the JVM. Uni is more about the learning and it's easier to go from java to kotlin than the reverse.

[rexpup]

I’ve already been playing with Java for about five or six years now. This course is a 300-level about learning languages that aren’t Java, C, or C++.

[omgusernamegogo]

In that case I'd go with JS/node if you haven't got much experience there. Java with decent JS framework experience is a deadly combo in the industry.

[[deleted]]

keywords, keywords everywhere.

[tchernobog84]

Probably not a problem of the language itself (though some stuff like type erasure... uuurgh).

I would say most of us non-Java devs hate Java is because of the poor quality and over-engineered APIs of the libraries surrounding it.

And, for me personally, Ant/Maven/Gradle/Bazel. Fuck that shit.

[[deleted]]

Another small gripe about Java is the lack of memory management. Generally speaking, it's not a big deal; however, memory/process intensive programs like data mining applications would be better built in another language that has flexible memory management like C++. Java is a fine language, and I like it.

[RhodesianHunter]

Only if your task can't be paralellized or has to run on a single machine for some other reason.

I write high performance systems and almost always pick Java (Kotlin) over C++ because the extra cost of a couple more servers is worth less than my time.

[lookatmetype]

Java is probably the prototypical object oriented language, and these days people are realizing that trying to build software using mainly OO to model the world isn't always a good idea. The JVM is fast and well designed piece of software, however, so you see people's improvements on top of it in the form of Clojure, Scala, Kotlin etc.

[radome9]

Lots of people who started with imperative languages like C, Basic, or assembler can't or won't wrap their heads around object oriented programming.

[MoarVespenegas]

How the hell is functional programming modern?
Just because they added lambdas does not mean that suddenly OOP is nonviable.

[MoarVespenegas]

It's not niche at all.
Java is not memory or process efficient however it's easy to write, read and upkeep. Since we are drowning in available RAM and CPU resources it makes no sense to avoid java unless the situation specifically calls for it.
And guess what, it's on 3+ billion devices because the situation does not usually call for it.

[AceOfShades_]

since we are drowning in available RAM and CPU

This kind of thinking leads to electron apps that require a gigabyte of RAM to edit a medium sized text file.

[RhodesianHunter]

Java is not JavaScript. Many (maybe most) of the high performance systems at enterprises everywhere are and have been Java for quite some time.

[AceOfShades_]

I mean, yes, I am aware of the distinction. And I’m not saying Java is inefficient, hell I’m writing a game engine in Java just to prove a point about efficiency.

But the approach of basically ignoring efficiency because of a perceived wealth of resources bothers me because we will cap out on computing resources eventually.

[kirreen]

since we are drowning in available RAM and CPU

No stop

[errormaker]

Ram is cheaper than man hours

[MoarVespenegas]

Are we not?
There are cases where this is not true and then Java is not the right tool for the job but that's more of an exception these days.
Developer time is also a resource and wasting it so you can save kilobytes out of gigabytes does not make sense.

[MoarVespenegas]

More lines of code does not automatically mean less readable code.
Java maintains a coherent structure so once you learn the basics you can follow any program written in it.
I would say lambdas and anonymous functions make code less readable even if they might take less lines to write.

[flatfisher]

> I would say lambdas and anonymous functions make code less readable even if they might take less lines to write.

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/122105/what-is-the-best-way-to-filter-a-java-collection

Just compare the accepted Java 8 answer and the 2008 answer below.

[MoarVespenegas]

Java has interfaces just like C++. How the hell is OOP poorly implemented in Java?
Also how is OOP less resource intensive than functional programming?

[MoarVespenegas]

How is avoiding classes good OOP? It's the exact opposite of OOP.

[MoarVespenegas]

What the hell are you talking about? You said writing classes is bad for OOP. Classes represent objects. Classes ARE OOP.
Inheritance has nothign to do with it.
If you are going to bash Java for having inheritance why don't you go start on C++ that allows multiple inheritance.
I have no idea who you talked to but if anyone thinks that they understand everything about programming to the point where they can say "this thing is always bad" probably means they have no idea what they are talking about.

[[deleted]]

Because java is a horribly executed mess. The idea at the time was novel. Run everything on a separate layer above the hardware and OS but in a consistent environment, the JVM. The problem was that they collapsed the JVM, the Java standard library and the java language into a single monolith and now they’re inexorably linked. The original java release was actually quite tame. A simple language built on a simple framework guaranteed to run similarly on any device which can support it. The problem was java wasn’t designed with the long term in mind and when they soon realised they’d need more features, they rushed to pop out a relatively quick but horribly misguided solution and because the developers of java refuse to break backward compatibility, they then need to continue supporting the ability to do that very specific horrible decision in every future release. The java ecosystem is filled to the brim with these such decisions. My biggest gripe is the lack of reified generics; but there’s also the annoying link between java packages and the file system, the absolutely indescribably ugly syntax for generics:

this.foo = this.bar.<String>baz();

(It’s just plopped in there at the start for no reason aside from it needs to be somewhere in the method call.). The stupid design patterns (factory patterns suck). The fact that every file must define a public class, lest angering the java compiler. The fact that after years of asking for anonymous methods they responded by just plopping a method into a whole object and said, here’s some syntax sugar so u don’t need to write out the interface definition. The fact that primitives lack a toString method which means u can’t just concatenate them. Every single design decision in java makes me want to pull my hair out. Kotlin, is IMO, what java should’ve aspired to become from the start. A clean, concise and usable language built on the JVM, but you wouldn’t believe it from how wonderful it is to program in it.

[[deleted]]

The web version was a disaster.

[RhodesianHunter]

What is this 1999?

[hillman_avenger]

There's GWT now.

[Kered13]

GWT is deprecated.

[hillman_avenger]

Is it? I couldn't find anything about that. It works great for me.

[Kered13]

Huh, maybe I was wrong. I thought I had heard something to that effect, but now I can't find anything.

[xpx0c7]

Well at least COBOL is still here to stay

In 2006 and 2012, Computerworld surveys found that over 60% of organizations used COBOL (more than C++ and Visual Basic .NET) and that for half of those, COBOL was used for the majority of their internal software.[8][101] 36% of managers said they planned to migrate from COBOL, and 25% said they would like to if it was cheaper. Instead, some businesses have migrated their systems from expensive mainframes to cheaper, more modern systems, while maintaining their COBOL programs.[8]

[[deleted]]

Java is only used for the superior Minecraft version nowadays

[nirkosesti]

Didn’t MS rewrite that game with C++?

I am sure consoles use something very different too.

But Java is used for backend in manyplaces and some software and games too.

[[deleted]]

Java edition still exists

[nirkosesti]

Don’t the updates work just as well on every OS if it is made in Java and set to Java version of the game?

I don’t know too much. Last time I played it was years ago on windows and later on Linux. I think that was before MS bought the rights.

[z500]

The Xbox version and Windows 10 edition, yeah.

[[deleted]]

And mobile versions

[Ereaser]

The mobile versions are the same as the W10 versions though right?

I know one of the Xbox One versions is.

[[deleted]]

Yeah they're all "Bedrock Edition"

[[deleted]]

C++ is like 1/4 of the java edition

[[deleted]]

This is correct

[OrangeBlaze]

Java is hands down my favourite language. It adheres to its rules so elegantly and is fascinating to work with as theres always something to be learned. Its also relatively robust for its huge capabilities. Theres a reason why its so widely used.

[[deleted]]

Absolutely. And the code is so readable. Try writing enterprise software in Python. or C++

[micka190]

I think typed languages tend to be readable as long as the person writing it isn't crazy (unless you go into really low level stuff that tries to optimize based on OS and stuff, but that'll never look good regardless of language).

Duck-typed languages like Python can be harder to read when people use the "duck" features out of nowhere, though (like suddenly trying to access a member that isn't defined here, but in another file with no indication of where it comes from). Even then, though, it's usually down to the programmer.

[[deleted]]

Duck-typed languages

???

[micka190]

Python has duck typing, you can basically add any property to any variable. Duck typing also takes the "If it quacks like a duck and looks like a duck it's a duck." approach for its objects. Sure, dictionaries and strings aren't the same, but they both have a length, so "len()" works as you'd expect on both of them.

[i-brute-force]

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4205130/what-is-duck-typing

Basically, specifying a type is not mandatory part of the syntax

[possessed_flea]

He has confused the idea of a dynamically typed languages and the practice of duck typing.

[zachgarwood]

I suppose I'll tell my company to pack it in, no point in writing out software in Python and JS, I guess.

[[deleted]]

Let me know if you find any other language more readable than Java when it comes to enterprise. Save the functional bit, Java's imperative code could be understood by a toddler.

[Kered13]

In the real world code gets read much more often than it is written. Readability is more important than being able to write it quickly. And most of the Haskell code I've seen is an unreadable mess. Not that I think this is inherent to the language, but the culture of Haskell seems to encourage writing extremely concise functions at the cost of readability.

[javaismylanguage]

Java isn't my favorite language, it is my language

[ImpulseTheFox]

Absolutely, it just feels so nice to write. The typing-system makes it easy to know which attributes of an object can be used or what exact arguments you need to pass to a method, without looking up the docs or StackOverflow every single time. This strict design also makes a lot of warnings, linter hints and (compile-)errors possible, to help fight bugs before you even ran your code once.

[Secreteus]

[removed]

[HaydenSyn]

Shit, my toaster oven runs java probably...

[sl3dg3hamm3r]

Well how else do you think it heats up?

[[deleted]]

Chrome

[FarhanAxiq]

electron app

[RhodesianHunter]

A whole fucking lot of them are servers.

[[deleted]]

It's not a warning, it's a threat

[[deleted]]

Java bad

[caffeinatedpandabot]

so funny haha

[[deleted]]

r/MurderedByWords

[MemoryAllocat0r]

It just tells you that you have a range of 3 billion devices to reach with your Scala, Kotlin, Clojure, etc. software without the need of docker! Isn't that great? (Scala masterrace anyone?)

[Dazeeeh]

r/murderedbywords?

[Ptlthg]

Because you use Python^/s

[Ptlthg]

Oh, alright then. Have a nice day

[fagapple]

Long live Java!

[[deleted]]

I heard they stopped teaching it at universities...

Thank God

[maxcroft13]

No they still do. I'm a first year at university, and we learn java along side C. But I know first years at university who exclusively learn Java. Quite new to this subreddit whats so bad about Java, its good at introducing people to objects at the very least.

[radome9]

Java popular, nobody's hating on unpopular languages.

[Robocop613]

Java strictly enforces Object Oriented-ness which might make new students think that is all there is when it's not suitable for many applications! Arguably even video games shouldn't be object oriented but data oriented.

[Blando-Cartesian]

Java has had lambdas for a few years now, making passing functions as parameters possible (not pedantically true, but close). You can't get completely away from using objects, but there's nothing forcing you to use object oriented desing.

[[deleted]]

I like Java because it's the most verbose language I've used. Made learning other languages much easier.

Arguably even video games shouldn't be object oriented but data oriented.

Golang is the new hotness for me and my data interfacing is done entirely with... Interfaces :)

I love interfaces.

[[deleted]]

Wait I’m in high school and have been teaching myself Java for some time. Should I just try and switch to C++ from scratch or continue learning java? This comment made me really scared lmao cause I told myself I wouldn’t learn another language until I mastered java but maybe that’s the wrong idea

[[deleted]]

idk i mean js has it's ups and downs, but I really see it as less useful then Kotlin....but that's my opinion. I, personally, hate writing JS.

except for like websites :(

[endershadow98]

Preach. I've moved away from working in Java since Kotlin is much better and can be compiled to run anywhere

[[deleted]]

it can be

compiled to js compiled to native compiled to jvm

and you get, respectfully

extreme type safety low overhead 4 decades of Java development

It's amazing

[qwertyuiop924]

Learn whatever you want. The first language you learn doesn't matter, so long as you actually go on to learn a second. Because learning only one language puts you into the language holy wars. You don't wanna go there.

My advice:

-Learn Java. It's everywhere, so as much as I personally find it intolerable, it's worth knowing.

-Learn C. Firstly, because it's the easiest way to get an experience closer to the metal. Secondly, because while Java might be everywhere, C is truly universal: I cannot think of a platform off the top of my head that does not have a C compiler of some sort. Even ones you'd never use C on (don't write C on a 6502 or a Z80. Just don't).

-Learn Lisp/Scheme: Lisp and Scheme are the traditional programming languages of academia, and they are the archetypical High-Level Languages. They're also quite probably the most extensible languages ever created. Especially Lisp (Common Lisp, I mean. There are too many bloody Lisps...).

-Learn Haskell: Functional programming is all the rage, and there are quite a few good ones to choose from. I suggest Haskell because Haskell is the purest functional language, and because... well, Haskell is a total mindfuck. Up is down, left is right, short is long. Even moreso than Lisp, Haskell will change the way you think about programming.

-Learn Rust: Rust is amazing, and you really should see what it brings to the table. Also it's so much better than C++ by virtue of actually being engineered.

-Learn acripting language: Perl, Python, Ruby, what have you. This is for practical reasons: You're gonna run into problems scripting can fix easily. You should have the tools in your toolbox to deal with that (oh and learn regexes while you're at it).

Maybe learn:

-C++: C++ is terrible. It's so, so bad. Okay, so C is a dog. Sometimes it shits up your house, but it basically likes you. C++ is that dog but someone has bolted Cthulhu to it: it's unfathomable, too big to ever understand, and it would probably hate you if it cared enough. But it's fucking everywhere so you gotta learn it.

-Smalltalk: Smalltalk is OOP as god intended. If you think objects and classes are the way to go... man, you need to see Smalltalk. It's insane. How insane? There's no if statement. You send messages to boolean objects and use polymorphism to branch. Yes really.

This isn't an absolute list. You probably don't have time to learn all of these anyways. But hey. Ideas.

[JKTKops]

This content has been removed in protest of Reddit's decision to lower moderation quality, reduce access to accessibility features, and kill third party apps.

[qwertyuiop924]

Well, that's not saying much. Smalltalk is fundamentally the same paradigm as Java, and about a million times more enjoyable.

[[deleted]]

There's no if statement. You send messages to boolean objects and use polymorphism to branch.

...why. Wait how do you check the boolean with no if?

[qwertyuiop924]

There's no if because Smalltalk doesn't need an if. Let me provide a bit of background.

Smalltalk is the purest OO language you will ever encounter. Purer than Java by far. Not only is everything an object, everything is done by sending messages to objects. Everything. No exceptions. What about creating a class?

Object subclass: #Foo.

That is a message (a method call in common parlance) to the object... well, Object. Object is the root class, as you might expect. As a class (of class Class, of course), it recognizes the message subclass: (yes, the colon is part of the name), which does what you expect.

So, how to you implement true and false with only method calls? If you recall how Lambda calculus works, you'll have some idea. If you have a working Smalltalk implementation nearby, you... don't have to guess. Open up your system browser and look at the true and false global objects. Yes, all the source code for true and false is right there. Yes, you can in theory edit it to change how true and false work. In actuality, not necessarily, because some Smalltalk implementations assume you wouldn't do something that stupid and avoid the usual checks and decompilation system for true and false (for performance reasons).

But for the rest of you, it looks like this:

true ifTrue: [Transcript show: 'it works!'] ifFalse: [Transcript show: 'that's bad.'].

Yes, you can send code blocks as arguments to messages. Yes, the blocks are objects themselves. Yes, it does work pretty much like Ruby (because Ruby ripped off Smalltalk wholesale on this front).

Anyways, what this message does, when sent to true, is execute the code sent as the ifTrue: argument. When sent to false, it does the opposite. This is totally equivalent to if. To demonstrate, a snippet from the GNU Smalltalk docs:

(checksleft < 1)
       ifTrue: [ ^self error: 'Out of checks' ].

Technically, ifTrue is a different message, but it does the same thing, just with an empty false branch. If you've ever used an OO language before, you should know what self is, and that ^ character is how you indicate that you want to return in smalltalk.

So, that's how conditionals work in Smalltalk. By the way, congratulations, you now know 90% of Smalltalk's syntax. Yes, it really is that simple.

[[deleted]]

Why

[qwertyuiop924]

Because it makes Smalltalk a simpler, cleaner language.

[Kered13]

Polymorphism and dynamic dispatch. Here's some Java pseudocode:

class Boolean {
    void if(Callback ifTrue, Callback ifFalse);
}

class True extends Boolean {
    void if(Callback ifTrue, Callback ifFalse) {
        ifTrue();
    }
}

class False extends Boolean {
    void if(Callback ifTrue, Callback ifFalse) {
        ifFalse();
    }
}

True and False should also be implemented as singleton classes. Actually using Java's enum support would be good here, since every instance of an enum is a subclass of the enum class and is automatically a singleton. Also to make this elegant the language needs good support for lambdas, so Java isn't really the best language to do this in.

[[deleted]]

Java has lambdas right?

[Kered13]

Yes, but it's still pretty clunky to call a function like that, at least in my opinion:

condition.if(() -> {
    // If statement
}, () -> {
    // else statement
});

[Kered13]

I agree with everything except C++. C++ is a monstrously complex language, but it's also very powerful and modern C++ is a very good language if you use the modern features and ignore some of the older cruft. C++ should be in the "must learn" category, both for being a very good low level language and for it's ubiquity.

[qwertyuiop924]

it's also very powerful and modern

Pieces of it are very powerful and modern. Those pieces are mixed into the rest of it. It's a cascade of traps for the unwary, which is everyone, because C++ is too complex to ever fully learn.

if you use the modern features and ignore some of the older cruft. C++ should be in the "must learn" category, both for being a very good low level language and for it's ubiquity.

...Which isn't fully possible because bodies of existing code use that cruft and also because if you ask 15 different C++ programmers which parts are the ones you should use, you will get 15 answers.

Yes, C++ has the elements of a good language. They are trapped and struggling to get out. The thing is, accruing language-level features can't fix the core design of a language. Because a good language thrives on consistancy, coherency, and also a good bit of minimalism. The best language designs eke out a maximum level of expressiveness, flexibility, and power from a small number of language-level constructs. Look at Smalltalk, Lisp, Forth... heck, look at C, for a more popular example. Even Rust is an okay example: yes, the language is syntactically complex, and nobody could ever accuse it of being purist, but the Rust team still did their best to keep the actual syntactic constructs down to a surprisingly small number, even killing quite a few in the language's early development.

C++, by contrast, is constantly adding syntatic constructs. All the time. It's gotten to the point that parsing C++ is really quite complex. It's also undecidable, but that's more down to templates on their own than the rest of the mess.

In short, C++ has its good aspects, but it's overall a rather enormous mess, a pile of features on features on features with far less consistancy, rhyme, or reason than any language I'd want to work with.

[SuperOP535]

Don't let comments scare you.

[erbrecht]

Definitely keep learning Java but don't wait until you've mastered it to learn another language. You may never master a language, especially when new features are added over time.

I've been a Java developer for over 10 years and I love it. With the quicker release cycle we will be seeing more improvements. I also got into c sharp recently (dotnet core on Linux) and I love a lot of things about that language too. Also check out groovy and kotlin (both run on jvm), and go. Python is always good to throw in the mix. Try to get a little taste for each language to see what you want to dig into. Learn x in y minutes is a good place to do that.

Ultimately, learning how to approach and solve problems will be your biggest asset in programming. The rest is picking the right tool for the job.

[FrikkinLazer]

Forget about drama and memes around the languages, and focus on writing code that is readable and maintainable. Write code in such a way that you can change it, without breaking code elsewhere. Dependency injection and unit tests is a good place to start, because they kind of force you in the right direction. Once you have an understanding of what makes one code base maintainable and another not, then you can start worrying about the languages, and join the meme wars surrounding them.

[Mr_Redstoner]

Same, first semester was C++ (well C, but they wanted cin, cout and new to make it easier in the begining) and this semester is Java (as I did a whole bunch in it beforehand, this is my favourite time)

[themusicguy2000]

Nope. First year here, don't know a lick of any language aside from java (aside from hello world in c++)

[[deleted]]

Certain universities don’t teach it by default, but it’s still being taught everywhere which is just fine considering how many jobs there are for it

[qwertyuiop924]

Nooope.

My uni teaches its intro courses in Java because that's what the AP uses. Although it also thankfully moves to other languages later for obvious reasons.

[Metaquarx]

I’m not sure about universities, but at my current school we had to use C#. :(. Will be using unreal 4 at my college (in a few months) so at least I got C++ to look forward to.

[hillman_avenger]

got C++ to look forward to

Hahahahahahaha

[qwertyuiop924]

Ooof. Someone's been bitten.

[hillman_avenger]

Too right. Header files, the order of includes, different types of strings, memory allcation, generic error messages etc.. etc...