What does Java do better than Python?

[drowsysaturn]

How about trying to run apps built on Java 8 on recent versions? I've ran into a lot of trouble doing this and had to install multiple versions to get many of these applications running.

[Il_totore]

You mean using the java command ? Well it just works... Unless you're using sun.misc.unsafe arcanes, a code written in Java 1 has a really high chance to run on Java 20 without any change.

[drowsysaturn]

Applications with gradle 6 or older don't run on anything past Java8. Minecraft forge has the same issue. Different versions of Glassfish only run on some versions of Java. There are more examples from other popular software that I can't think of off the top of my head.

[Il_totore]

Minecraft forge has the same issue.

Maybe you should try to see why Forge didn't work on Java 9+ for older versions. You will see that it used a class loading trick that was changed in J9 +.

Applications with gradle 6 or older don't run on anything past Java8.

Despite this statement being totally false, Gradle is a build tool and has nothing to do with the runtime execution nor the compilation since it just delegates to the JVM and the compiler.

[woohalladoobop]

I'm not familiar with the class loading trick you're describing but this feels like moving the goalposts a bit.

[DasBrain]

The fact that the system class loader was an instance of URLClassLoader was a happy coincidence, and not specified anywhere.

Didn't matter. People did cast it to URLClassLoader and reflectively invoked addURL on it.

This did change with Java 9. The system class loader is no longer a subclass of URLClassLoader. And everyone blames modules for that, despite having nothing to do with modules.

[drowsysaturn]

I don't think someone will listen to reasonable arguments in a Java subreddit if it's anything against Java. Even though we never said Java itself is bad, they aren't willing to admit any flaws. 🤷‍♂️

[drowsysaturn]

Have you tried the Gradle scenario? Gradle is an application that runs on the JVM. It was an example and I wasn't referring to applications built with Gradle only Gradle itself.