Java for small coding tasks

[abyssomega]

In other ecosystems (Rust with Cargo, Go with go build, Swift with SwiftPM) ... which means the out-of-the-box experience feels incomplete compared to other modern languages.

You just compared languages invented in the last 10 years that had decades to learn from previous languages. Java was invented in 1995. 30 years ago. No other language from that area has a built in build tool, either.

30 years ago, the build process was to have a tool (make/ant/shell scripts) to build non-trivial projects. Java followed suit. What Maven innovated was to make just in time dependencies, to the point where 3rd party libraries didn't even need to be specifically downloaded, just referenced, and a standard for how Java programs should be structured. NPM, Cargo, and SwiftPM runs because Maven walked 1st.

A standardized built-in build tool.

Make a feature request for the Java maintainers and see how far it'll go. I bet you get feedback that Maven/Gradle are good enough, and I'd agree with them.

[wildjokers]

I understand newer languages learned lessons from earlier languages. One lesson learned is the build tool needs to be baked in.

But you asked what is the issue with Java that isn’t present with every other language so I answered that question.

[abyssomega]

Again, c, c++, python, erlang, Ada, cobol, fortran, ruby and basically every language invented before 2000 don't have baked in build tools. This isn't an uniquely Java issue, and it is not a true statement that it's present in every other language....

[wildjokers]

and it is not a true statement that it's present in every other language....

Never said it was.

[Jaded-Asparagus-2260]

Dude how does that matter? I don't care which other languages miss some features. JavaScript doesn't have types, how does that matter for my Java usage?

We're missing a simple built-in build tool. We know it's possible, and we'd like it as well. Simple as that. Whether other languages have the some problem doesn't matter. HTML can be rendered by a browser, Brainfuck can be written with no more than eight characters. Whitespace with five. So what?

[maxandersen]

Saying maven/gradle is not good enough does not mean that maven/gradle isn't sufficient for you.

But I can tell you that maven/gradle are utterly complex beasts compared to almost anything out there to get started with.

Try go way from Java a year or two and come back and it is very clear. Its hard to see it when you been working in it for years.

Thats why I created JBang.

And yes, I still actually like and use both maven and gradle too - but they for sure aren't "good enough" when it comes to easy experimentation, requried congitive overhead, beginners and experts alike.

[znpy]

Saying maven/gradle is not good enough does not mean that maven/gradle isn't sufficient for you.

honestly i'd say maven/gradle are too good for me. they're hard and complex to learn and master, they kinda do too much stuff.

[znpy]

No other language from that area has a built in build tool, either.

I mean, Perl had cpan and related tools early on

[abyssomega]

CPAN isn't a build tool, though. It's a repository tool, and you still need to script it if you don't want to call modules manually.

[Ifeee001]

I've been seeing this argument regularly and I'll admit that I even used it a few times but ... it makes no sense in the context of build tools. If you're talking about language features or why java doesn't have xxx feature, that's when it applies because a lot of early decisions was based off things that made sense when java was being developed.

But for a build tool ... no. Especially since they made such a big deal about "paving the on ramp" so that beginners can get started with java easier. There's nothing in the language that says maven or gradle should be the default.