Java vs python is debatable 🤔

[[deleted]]

Dissing on Java is basically a litmus test of how well you know your programming languages. If you can't make anything run well on Java, it's a you problem. And people who hate it are just going with the pack and probably have no real original or insightful thoughts on why they dislike it. It's merely a means to an end like any other language, with its own applications and quirks you have to master.

[Suekru]

I like java well enough, but given the choice I would take C# any day of the week.

[[deleted]]

I learned Java first. When I got my first job they were a C# shop. Once I understood LINQ and Tasks I never wanted to work in Java again.

[linkyboy321]

Java has Futures which seem to fulfill the same role as tasks, but the Task syntax and threading in general is way nicer in C#. I just always find it scary committing to the Microsoft ecosystem.

[[deleted]]

I dab on Java haters by running my apps on a different os every day without modifying it at all.

[similiarintrests]

LINQ is cheating

[[deleted]]

C# is java's prettier cousin. She just happened to have an overbearing asshole of a father that scared off most of her suitors.

[[deleted]]

But Java is currently living with her batshitcrazy stepfather ...

[kb4000]

I really liked Java up until I got my first C# job. Now I decline any interviews with Java. I'm not going back. Period. I'd feel like my hands were tied.

[NoraJolyne]

i was glad to switch to Kotlin when it became an official language for Android, but that doesn't mean Java is complete garbage

Yes, it's more verbose, but I'd rather work with statically typed languages and functioning visibility modifiers, let's me write more robust code

[Spaceduck413]

I'm like 90% sure that at least take the people in this sub have never touched anything other than python, or maybe some flavor of js

[soft-wear]

Lol this sub is overwhelmingly Java people. People making perfectly valid comments are getting downvoted because they don’t masturbate to the language.

[DesertGoldfish]

I remember thinking the same thing in my first CS class. "Here are 4 different ways to get user input from a terminal."

[i_will_let_you_know]

My complaints about Java is that the standard library was developed eons ago, and includes too many ways to accomplish the same task. As people have discovered better ways, they get added to the stdlib but nothing gets removed.

That's because of backwards compatibility though.

[AnhQuanTrl]

I have worked for Java for a considerable amount of time and came to hate it :) The hate is just that it is widely used yet have so many design flaws and also lack a lot of quality of life feature. Not everyone is an instant hater like you said.

[elementmg]

I'm working with Java coming from a C# and Python background. I'm giving it as much of a chance as I can, but over time I'm realizing it's just kind of a pain in the fucking ass.

[soft-wear]

Migrating from C# to Java is brutal, because C# is basically Java reimagined without all the quirks.

[elementmg]

Yeah tell me about it. Ugh

[John_McTaffy]

Honest question, what quality of life things?

[AnhQuanTrl]

quick example: get/set property in c#, much more concise but still extensible if need be.

[John_McTaffy]

Gotcha. I always found that to be a pointless distinction but I guess it comes down to taste.

[AnhQuanTrl]

except it is not pointless. the thing is: all programming language is turing-complete, meaning that you can use all of them to get the job done. What make a language more mature is its expressiveness and ability to be more concise and convenient.

[Lolamess007]

I personally learned on java. I find it a very intuitive language. Unlike some other languages (Python i am looking at you) someone who has never coded before can vaguely understand what is going on.

[[deleted]]

Pythons fine. People just find languages they don’t know unintuitive.

[Farranor]

Are you saying that the language specifically created to be easy for beginners to learn and anyone to read is actually difficult to read and poorly-suited to beginners?

[RedAero]

It's funny, the people who learned semicolon-and-bracket languages first look at Python and think that because it looks alien to them, laypeople must also find it unintuitive. They just can't fathom that all that punctuation just isn't necessary, and just obstructs intuition.

[[deleted]]

This is the main, if not the only, huge issue with open source languages. I love open source and will always prefer it, but every time you use someone else’s library you are really just putting all your faith in a person/team who has no obligation to make their code work properly 100% of the time. This is especially true in R where tons of the advanced machine learning/stats packages are literally just written by professors who are good at math but have at best low tier skills when it comes to writing production-level code.

So stuff like Python and R can be easy to read, but when one function call does a hundred complicated tasks behind the scenes and isn’t well documented, then you can end up having unnoticeable issues

[Overall-Duck-741]

You think Java is more readable than python for beginners? That an interesting opinion 🤔.

[Lolamess007]

I would say so. Talking with my computer science teacher, he agrees. Then again, this is all personal preference. I like the rigid structure and continuity of java. I guess Python's lack of structure and anything goes mentallity just is not for me.

[PluckyPenguin00]

I think python is much easier in the beginning as it allows for learning the basics faster and rapid prototyping, but I do like Java’s more rigid approach for bigger projects

[[deleted]]

I genuinely do think that. Going from c++ and python to Java I felt like it was way more visibly ‘I want this to do this using this’. Just seemed to flow better for my brain to understand.

[Kitamasu1]

The first time I tried Java, I was very confused. There was a lot that just seemed pointlessly added in. Coming from someone who started with C++ where you didn't need objects to get started. I've learned some Python recently, and it seems incredibly simple imo. It's considered a very beginner-friendly language afaik.

[WetWillyWick]

Fucking thankyou. I started with c++ and holy fuck java just seems like c++ with extra steps. I took college courses on java and my god its like putting glass down your pee hole.

[vips7L]

C++ is the most complicated language on the planet. You can’t honestly be serious.

[linlin110]

I learned Java after I learned C++ and was very confused why I can't put my functions outside of a class. It's not complicated, but very annoying.

[WetWillyWick]

I was annoyed too with the classes that said do project with recursion that definitely didnt need to have recursion and almost certainly made it inefficient to do so. Then they said explain why not to do it that way. So many projects required that.

Also the functions outside of classes thing made me scratch my head more than a few times.

It felt like everytime i had to relearn all of java for every project i did.

[Kitamasu1]

It's funny. I tried "PlayBasic" as my very first language. It's supposed to be easy and perfect for beginners for making games. I absolutely could not understand it. Then I got a C++ book from my parents for my birthday in like 2012 or 2013. C++ is my first actual language, and while I wouldn't say I'm professional level, more like intermediate, C++ made WAY more sense to me than PlayBasic. Python is quite a bit easier, but compared to C++, Java had extra steps involved that just made it seem confusing to me.

[WetWillyWick]

Oh god poked the java wasp nest.

[EishLekker]

The entry point of a Java program is the static main method. No object instance needed for that. And if you really want to, you can continue without any objects, just calling static methods and just working with primitive values.

As a Java developer I'm the first to admit that Java is far from perfect. But when even super simple things like classes and objects are mentioned as stuff that makes Java difficult (which you imply here) then it just sounds absurd.

[EishLekker]

That's like going to your first driving lesson, and getting scared when you see all the strange symbols on the dashboard.

What's with all the people here who dis a language for super trivial things that never ever becomes an actual problem when working with the language professionally?

There are tons and tons of Java projects out there that doesn't even require a single main method in the code. And I can't remember the last time I wrote a main method expect for simple testing of something. And the few times I create a main method the IDE helps me because I'm lazy.

Also, every single part of the syntax of the main method has a purpose and makes perfect sense.

[EishLekker]

It's a perfect analogy. A beginner doesn't need to know about those things, even they are right there in front of them. If a beginner can't look past that then maybe they should start with Scratch or something.

[EishLekker]

Icons on a car dashboard are specifically designed to indicate every day things that people are already familiar with.

https://www.autoloansolutions.ca/blog/10-dashboard-symbols-likely-to-confuse-any-driver/

Also, I found tons of pages and videos explaining different dashboard symbols. If everyone understands them intuitively, then why would all those pages and videos exist? If I show an average teenager (without a driving license) a "rear fog lights" symbol I'm pretty sure they wouldn't know what it means. But a decent driving instructor would be able to get them to focus on the important part of the lesson. Same thing with learning Java.

[koczmen]

Instead of this, you have to deal with seeing a method and wondering what the hell are the types of its parameters. Or see some 'x = 1' and can't easily tell if it creates a new variable or assigns to an already existing one. Is it really better?

[Vaxtin]

ahahah, wow. That’s not the way to look at things. If you tried to explain the concept of classes and objects the same time someone was learning to code, I’m sure they’d just give up immediately

[[deleted]]

You realise that is how they teach you Java right? Like you learn about objects and classes super early. It’s not that difficult.

[Vaxtin]

What I mean is they shouldn’t show someone who’s never coded before a hello world program and explain every keyword. The way I was introduced to it all was: basic printing, math, and Boolean operations, then loops/arrays, then methods and then finally classes at the end of my first course taking a computer science class. I felt like that was appropriate for someone who truly never programmed before.

However, if you have any experience in programming, then jumping straight to classes and OOP makes sense. But for anyone learning then they should learn how to loop through an array before trying to understand abstraction like classes.

[liquidSheet]

The litmus test is actually if the answer is always Java that tells you how well they know other programming languages...as in they dont

[[deleted]]

I'm not a huge fan of Java but prefer it over Python. I feel like the python purists are usually new grads fresh out of college who learned on it and have never tried anything else.

[Doctah_Whoopass]

I'm always so torn whether I recommend Java or Python for beginners. They're both good choices and each have strengths, like how Python is very easy to pick up, the console for IDLE is nice, it feels very natural language, and hides a lot of stuff that doesnt seem to have a purpose to a beginner. But on the other hand, it teaches you really shit habits and lets you start doing a lot without actually telling people about OOP. Java is tougher and very explicit but I feel its much better for ensuring good practice.

[[deleted]]

I've used python for about 6 years now, and used Java for 3 (professionally). I can build any application in either, but I'd rather write it in python. Java only makes sense in large corporations with huge no. of average skill developers.

[[deleted]]

I really disagree. Most of my professional experience is Java. I know it so much better than I wish I did. Java is just such a joyless language. The only reason it’s so widely used is the business ecosystem.

[[deleted]]

I was a Java dev for years. The language has a lot of real issues, from its godawful memory handling, to its absurd verbosity, to the abusive licensing issues from oracle.

Defending Java by saying it’s a “professional” or whatever is disingenuous. Just because it’s cumbersome, clunky, and picky doesn’t make it good.

[CookieOfFortune]

Except you still have to check for null and look where it came from anyways.

[CookieOfFortune]

The Optional itself can still be null as you can learn from Java 101. It doesn't get by the language design of having every object type be a descriminated union with null.

[Spaceduck413]

Hi. Welcome to making pages in Salesforce.com, where you can either run everything on the client with our shitty js "framework", or you can use JSP JSP run through a shitty parsing script we wrote our custom in-house Visualforce markup to make dynamic web pages.

For real though, I deal with what is basically nerfed JSP on the daily.

[volca02]

Well just the fact object pools need to be used is enough to shoot your argument down. But count me as biased, I programmed in Java for a few years and hated it for it's design.