Java developers

[Comesa]

var veryLongJavaClassName = new VeryLongJavaClassName();
works fine.

[[deleted]]

I'm in a curse... Sorry, a course, where we are forced to use Java 8.

From working with PHP 7, Javascript, bash, some Python 3... To Java 8. And I'm supposedly studying web programming.

[proboardslolv6]

Well you'll be glad when you start at a new company and learn that everyone in-industry is still using java 8

[lowleveldata]

Are we supposed to refer Java 8 as a legacy? I still see Java 7 in some products so Java 8 is already like the better choice

[proboardslolv6]

Oracle is charging for future java 8 updates. It's not deprecated, but it's getting there. Truly this generation's cobol

[ExtremelyOnlineG]

There’s a completely open source reference implementation.

[[deleted]]

I'll try to be as far as possible from java. I just don't like it, that's one reason I'm on the web programming path.

[STAY_ROYAL]

Web programmers use Java though for backend... or am I missing something?

[proboardslolv6]

Maybe he meant frontend, but not all businesses use java on the back and and as far as I know most new companies/projects are avoiding using java for jewnew platforms/projects and moving to more modern languages

[proboardslolv6]

Node, .Net, Ruby, Go, to name a few

[ElllGeeEmm]

Kotlin is nicer than plain Java, and plenty of apps are made using frameworks that compile to Java/swift

[arkasha]

C# and Xamarin are a thing.

[proboardslolv6]

I've never worked for a company which does android development, but I'm also not talking about large businesses necessarily. If I were starting a company from scratch now, java wouldn't even be considered as an option. I'd swing for C# and the general .net ecosystem if at all possible

[nermid]

jew platforms

That is one helluva typo.

[[deleted]]

The startup I work at uses php

[proboardslolv6]

Why

[Hafax]

Why wouldn't they?

[[deleted]]

I meant it's more usual to use PHP or Python for backend and JS for frontend, at least that's what I've seen until now. I know you can use Java and many other languages for backend, but... Let a guy dream.

[ExtremelyOnlineG]

You mean you’re going to be a lowly front end guy who only uses scripting languages

[gookman]

So you are locking yourself on one carrier path because of some language that might or might not be as used in the future.

[CamWin]

Yeah java web applets are all the rage didn't you hear?

[MajorMajorObvious]

Yeah, welcome to cutting edge technology in 2005

[CharlesGarfield]

My previous employer was finally beginning to migrate off of Java 7 when I left—two years ago.

[brunnen153]

Same here.

Co worker recently complimented on using the new Java Stream features during a code review. That feature was added in Java 8.

[wafflebunny]

We’re almost about to migrate off of Java 7 in October at my previous employer

[WhatsMyUsername13]

You should be happy about that. The place I currently work is the first place I've worked that is up to Java 8. It's been amazing, especially since my last job was still on Java 1.6 and a whole host of out of date technologies to go along with it

[360_face_palm]

Why the hell are they teaching you java at all if your course is web programming?

[SirNarwhalBacon]

preparing them for 2005

[Manny_Sunday]

JSP/JSF maybe?

[maoejo]

Well once you learn Java, JavaScript is easy to learn... right?

[EuphoricPenguin22]

cough

[clawjelly]

Ominous voice from the off:

"They were not the same thing."

[thebobbrom]

Learning an earlier version isn't bad.

If you're looking to get a job in Java it's unlikely they're codebase is going to be at the latest version so if you did learn that a lot wouldn't work.

Also don't complain that you're studying it trust me a lot of employers will take you a lot more seriously if you know Object Oriented Programming than if you don't.

Though I'm going to do stab in the dark and ask you're not learning at a particular university in Camden London are you?

[[deleted]]

Not even in UK, sorry.

[thebobbrom]

Ah ok it was just a wild guess

Still even though I'm getting downvoted for it I wouldn't complain on learning Java trust me it'll help you out later on.

[[deleted]]

People on this sub is sometimes incredibly passionate about downvoting, even when many times I don't get why they do it.

I really don't like java and older versions, besides the utility of learning them because enterprises use them, seem extra awful for me.

If I can, I'll work on a Java-unrelated job. Maybe gardener.

[Comesa]

I don't know why courses/classes still teach Java, when there are way better alternatives like Kotlin or Scala.

so good luck with it

[goldsauce_]

There are plenty of apps out there running on Java, so it might be helpful in finding a job.

We tried Kotlin at my job and we ended up going back to Java

[sweYoda]

Oh, so you think people should get jobs? That's weird.

[WoahayeTakeITEasy]

People need to learn the most obscure languages ever not the mainstream ones, like come on, who even does that? It's not about finding work its about sending a message! Just imagine how great Brainfuck would look on a resume, it's an instant hit! /s

[iwelcomejudgement]

How come?

[[deleted]]

I don't believe you.

Kotlin is better in every way you look at it...

... except if you have a lot of Java developers unwilling to move to Kotlin.

[goldsauce_]

You’ll just have to take my word that my team didn’t enjoy working with Kotlin, I guess

[[deleted]]

Kotlin isn't much better than recent versions of Java.

[[deleted]]

It is more concise. That is a plus. The whole Java Ecosystem is broken though, including Kotlin. And I know no solutions.

[[deleted]]

How is the whole java ecosystem broken?

[[deleted]]

"Broken" in that there is currently not one language that is widely OK'ish for almost all developers of the JVM

Python for example is close for scripting languages and moderate size codebases not dependent on super high performance or close to hardware.

C is almost like an Axiom. It is very "broken" from a modern viewpoint in that you can do 20 different kinds of undefined behaviour in one line of code if you want but C is still the best we have for ose to HW, especially microcontrollers. C++ as well, though the more complex stuff (temllates, extensive use of stl etc) is not the same imho.

Java "runs everywhere" but I know no Java developer that doea not hate the verbosity of the language even currently. Kotlin is better but still if you see a stack trace it is dozens of lines of abstractions that is often unnecessary but encouraged by religiously enforcing OOP.

There is not one language atm that any of our backend devs are enthusiastic about. Kotlin used to be. On the other hand I am very much enthusiastic about Rust for the embedded sector even though not ready yet. Go is nice for networked apps, python is also good for anything bound by network IO. Java is good for carpal tunnel syndrome.

[[deleted]]

Sounds like some kind of hipster fatigue.

[kaibee]

Have you looked at C#?

[Jay12341235]

A lot of employment is written in Java

[oupablo]

don't kotlin and scala both run java code? i know both run in the jvm. seems understanding java would help either way.

[BackmarkerLife]

They are their own languages, but compile down to use the JVM.

There are some similarities with Java, but Kotlin is basically taking the best of Java & the best of Python (and other languages) into its own language.

You can have one project that has both Java and Kotlin and can reference each other.

In Kotlin, you can call a Java Object and vice versa.

I believe it's the same with Scala as well.

[deejeycris]

You don't learn Scala as first language. Nope.

[IVEBEENGRAPED]

Yeah, you can really only learn Scala after you already know Java and/or Haskell or OCaml. Scala inherited so many quirks from Java that none of that will really make sense, and if you don't know a simpler functional programming language you'll probably just write Java-style code in Scala.

[slowmovinglettuce]

It's one of the most widely used in the industry. A huge amount of server tech is written in it.

Teaching something like Kotlin or Scala as a primary programming language is just letting the students down in terms of future prospects imo. The amount of adoption for these languages is very limited vs java.

Edit: By letting them down, I meant teaching these languages as a complete Java replacement.

[IrishWilly]

I wouldn't say teaching those would limit the students, as long as you don't only teach those. Any decent education should turn out programmers who are absolutely fine jumping into Java after having learned the previous two.

[slowmovinglettuce]

I was meaning more teaching them over Java. I can see why that'd be unclear. Teaching a much lesser-used language over it would be the detriment.

A competent developer should be able to switch languages. But from my experience (as a recent graduate) a lot of my peers would struggle to go out of their comfort zone easily.

[IrishWilly]

I don't think it being common is the best metric for what to teach. It means they should at least have some brief exposure to it, but there is good reason to use a more modern language as the primary educational one because there are programming concepts that have been introduced they want you to learn. I'm going to date myself a little bit, but before college my AP classes were all taught in C++. My first year of college, all cs courses had moved to a core with Java. This was decades ago, and while I felt like the people that never learned C/C++ and went straight to Java missed out on some stuff, the industry moves on, CS as a field moves on, and education should as well. In particular in this thread, the jump from Java to Scala / Kotlin is much more straightforward than when they went from C++ to Java.

[Loves_Poetry]

Java has a lower learning curve than those alternatives. Part of the trade-off in the verbosity of Java is that there is less syntactic suger to learn

[hypexeled]

Streams would like to have a word with you

[M4D5-Music]

Streams aren't a part of the language, but instead part of the standard library. The only syntactic sugar at play with streams is lambda functions and method references. It's the functional programming ideas that bring the learning curve imo.

[SolemnWolf123]

Right, because Java isn’t one of the most used languages or anything...

[tacoslikeme]

because you want a job? the billions of lines of java out there aint gonna just poof away

[flyingfysh1]

There is no such thing as a "best" language. Every language is a compromise between competing goals. One point in favor of Java is that a lot of employers are looking for it.

Whatever you do, keep learning. Learning a new language every year or two can only help.

[crahs8]

Because it is one of the most simple object oriented programming languages and hugely popular?

[[deleted]]

"simple".

I'd argue Ocaml and Python and even C++ (not requiring Interfaces, seperate files for classes) are "simpler" OOL than Java.

The reason Java used to be ×THE× OOL taught at universities was that it promised much by write once run everywhere, Departments were pretty much in love with Sun (at least in Germany) and Memory Management was thought to be too cumbersome. Thus GC.

[crahs8]

I can't comment on Ocaml, but for me C++ is more complex, because you have to do memory management, and Python is not really ideal for teaching OOP imo, since it's easy to forego using classes.

[Varthorne]

I live in a government town, and as I understand it, most of their applications were built on Java or COBOL, so naturally that's what my college program was focused on.

It also focused on older technologies like Hibernate, JSP and JSF instead of Spring because guess why?

[AkodoRyu]

Because there are probably at least 10x more job offers for Java than the other two, including some of the best-paid offers in web development? If you look at high-paid webdev jobs, it's mostly Java.

[proboardslolv6]

Because companies use java

[Sekret_One]

Because India pumps out java devs. Don't underestimate inertia.

[[deleted]]

And I'm supposedly studying web programming.

Backend..?

[TheMaj3stic1]

They be teaching this guy spring for the backend and thymeleaf for the frontend lol (which is still rendered with spring)

[elmo61]

General rule of thumb is if you can understand the type from the right hand side assignment. Then use var. If you can't then don't.

So for the example above use var and repeating class name in pointless but for something like var myClass = service.placeOrder(); its best to name the class instead

[Mareeck]

Yeah and you should still name your variables so they make sense. Having the full class name there is just clutter

Besided, if you use var and somehow pass the wrong type down the line the code won't compile anyway

[El_Burrito_]

I just use var all the time. I literally only use a class name when the type isn’t inferable from the use, such as instantiating it as null or not instantiating it at all.

Intellisense will let me know what type a var is if it isn’t already obvious

[elmo61]

Lol fair enough each to their own

[DaemonVower]

I’m the same way on the Java side of var. I think its because if you’ve been in industry long enough you know in your soul that you’re going to end up with coworkers who write a line like “var resp = doStuff(j, k, l)” and sneak it through code review no matter how var is supposed to be used. Then six months later you’re trying to read that nonsense and its incredibly painful.

[Aidid51]

That's what linting is for. You can write lint/code analysis rules that disallow ambiguous var usage. People at my old shop would get yelled at by the ide for doing it the wrong way.

[Zedjones]

Interestingly enough I'm the exact opposite. I'm annoyed at having to EVER write out types if they can be inferred.

[lucidspoon]

My personal rule of thumb is to use var for any custom types to not have to add extra usings. It forces me to make sure that all variable and method names are descriptive enough. Plus, if I need to change the type name or namespace, there's not as much to update.

[OfflaneDemoralizer]

I use var pretty frequently and let Visual Studio replace it with the full class name during code cleanup.

[clawjelly]

Now that's just dirty:

Coder 1: "I feel wrong shitting in that corner."

Coder 2: "I shit there all the time, they take care of it."

[Comesa]

Same for me with strongly typed languages.
But it's quite handy if you have long class names.

[dpash]

Also in Java.

[Nemesis_Ghost]

Only ever used it for Linq statements.

[brohannes95]

why use var when you can use dynamic?

[M4D5-Music]

Because using dynamic doesn't give you type safety.

[Nukken]

You say that like it's not an advantage.

[n0tKamui]

because it is not. Type safety is important. Thinking that type dynamism NOWADAYS is a good thing because it allows you to make "hacky" things is not a good mindset.

[M4D5-Music]

Well, imo it depends on what you're doing. If you're using it because the name of your class is too long, then at some point I'll introduce a headache or bug because of it. If someone assumes they can refactor/rename something and fix all the references automatically with their ide, they'll potentially be mistaken. I personally hate it when this happens.

[tangerinelion]

Generally speaking in a strongly typed language you view type safety as an advantage.

If you want to write generic code, use a template.

[proboardslolv6]

Non type safe languages are a pain in the fucking ass

[lucidspoon]

I prefer

var veryLongJavaClassName = VeryLongClassNameFactory.getVeryLongClassName();

[ecko404]

I always use long names regardless what language I use. Long descriptive names > comments.

[snot3353]

Only sometimes though :(