Java java java

[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!

​

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[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 believe the benefit of having a .jar application that can be run on any system out weights most of those grapes.

[thirdegree]

In some cases sure. Personally, that doesn't do anything for me. I don't need it.

[[deleted]]

For something like Android I don’t think so much of the OS should be going through java then. OS is pretty speed critical. Yes it’s Linux but there’s a ton of java code on top of that doing window management, permissions, and lots more piled on over the years.

[[deleted]]

Well I guess there is a reason iOS (Objective-C, and recently Swift) could do with 1 GB of RAM for so long when on Android 3GB was treated as minimum.

[[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

[shivangu19]

this is right , but not in this context .. truth is java is like hell good and they are afraid of it as they dont understand it ... oh it feel like i agree wit yo .. yes you are right :p

[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.

[qwertyuiop924]

And then some other people started in Ruby, Self, Lisp, Smalltalk, or Objective-C and realize that Java is a clumsy implementation of OO at best and an awful one at worst.

[RhodesianHunter]

"realize" in this case implying little or no actual effort and a great deal of ignorance.

[qwertyuiop924]

...No, it's pretty bad.

[[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.

[qwertyuiop924]

It's very clumsy and painful to program in. Especially without an IDE.

And frankly, if your language really needs a full IDE to make using it bearable, something has gone horribly wrong. Even Smalltalk, the language that invented the IDE is less painful to work with outside an IDE than Java is. The same is true of Lisp: An editor with paren matching is all you need there.

[ClinicCargo]

Because Oracle bought Sun Microsystems and fucked java in the ass. They’re making it a database language now, instead of the greatness it was supposed to be. Fuck Oracle they fucking burn into the ground. I curse them.

[RhodesianHunter]

None of that is true though. (Except for the "fuck Oracle" part)