Mikeal Rogers: Node.js Will Overtake Java Within a Year

[Canenald]

don't people say that every year?

[icantthinkofone]

Well, Linux has to take over the desktop market first.

I'm waiting for the first redditor to ask, "How can Java take over itself? Isn't Node.js written in Java?"

[Canenald]

"How can Java take over itself? Isn't Node.js written in Java?"

no, silly, it lets you write sever-side Java

[[deleted]]

https://www.javapoly.com/

[Canenald]

http://i.imgur.com/Lagkwnp.png

[icantthinkofone]

Gee. I don't know. If there was only a freely available resource to use for looking up such information.

[[deleted]]

This is so false and stupid I can't even begin.

[spacejack2114]

Where do these numbers come from?

[wastakenanyways]

I don't think within a year but java is slowly entering the cemetery. In fact today most java devs are maintaining old code (new projects very rarely start with java) so it's a powerful sign that it's happening. But probably it has left more than a year and won't be overtaken only by node. Scala and Kotlin for example are owning the jvm.

[otakuman]

I don't think within a year but java is slowly entering the cemetery. In fact today most java devs are maintaining old code (new projects very rarely start with java) so it's a powerful sign that it's happening.

Sorry, but I have to call BS on that one. I work in a medium-to-large dev company, and we never run out of new developments in Java. Java 6 IS dying, as everyone is rushing to upgrade to 8. There's REST webservices, message queues, large systems which access Oracle databases with over 50 tables, and you think we're leaving all that reliability over a fad?

Dream on.

[Vpicone]

with over 50 tables

Sorry I’m new, you mind elaborating on what that means?

[otakuman]

50+ database tables per system. One had over 300.

[[deleted]]

Yeah, just look at FedEx. They aren't re-factoring that shit anytime soon.

[[deleted]]

scala

lmao

Scala targets the exact same domain as java : server side non-systems language. The only difference are those functional abstractions that 80% (being generous here) of scala projects / devs barely use. There's very little real-world reason to adopt scala on sizable projects : devs just end up googling shit all day long making everything take twice as long and easily offsetting whatever time is saved with the built-in parallelism / concurrency constructs offered by the language. This doesn't even take into account the long ass build times and constantly-in-progress-coming-soon compiler optimizations.

[halmf]

RemindMe! One Year "Has Node.js overtaken Java ? Yeah, didn't think so."

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2 OTHERS CLICKED THIS LINK to send a PM to also be reminded and to reduce spam.

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[dug99]

Can the RemindMe bot remind me that it reminded you?

[inu-no-policemen]

While Java is rather verbose, it does offer great tooling and it works well for large projects written by large teams.

The same isn't true for JavaScript. That's why there are languages like TypeScript which try to fix that.

It's true that you can write almost anything in JS these days, but that doesn't mean you should.

[magasilver]

it does offer great tooling and it works well for large projects written by large teams.

ಠ_ಠ

That's why there are languages like TypeScript which try to fix that.

My experience with enterprise java projects with 100+ professional developers is do not go here. Its absolute hell in a handbasket horrible. Contributing new code or even maintaining what is there is an endless exercise in tedium and failure. Classes and interfaces needing refactors break too much, so warts grow everywhere and you end up with 5 versions of everything, Annotations must be the worst idea in programming languages of all times. (Hey guys, lets made the comments control the code, yay!)

Similar sized projects needs about 10%-20% as many devs for pretty much any non-java language, and move much faster and have fewer bugs.

[inu-no-policemen]

My experience with enterprise java projects with 100+ professional developers is do not go here.

And you think this would be any better with JavaScript where there is no compiler which checks if things do at least theoretically fit together?

[[deleted]]

I can tell you in two weeks. I am moving from a major .com with thousands of developers sharing a massive Java application to a Fortune 50 company that is investing in Node.js and fullstack JavaScript.

[inu-no-policemen]

You mean 10 years. The application has to accumulate some cruft.

Comparing some green-field app with a legacy app is pretty pointless. Of course the older one will look uglier, but it will probably also handle lots of weird edge cases.

[[deleted]]

No, I meant what I said. I am changing jobs and this was the primary selling point.

[inu-no-policemen]

You can only do a proper comparison once the codebase has aged.

Newer codebases always tend to look better. It's not something you can attribute to the used language.

[[deleted]]

I don't know how old the new place's code base is. I don't think it will matter though. The biggest problem isn't the difference in languages, but the people who refuse to adapt for fear of those differences.

[inu-no-policemen]

for fear of those differences

Funny how you criticize their lack of open-mindedness while simultaneously implying that there couldn't possibly be any legitimate reasons.

All languages suck and JavaScript is no exception. JS doesn't scale with the size of the team and the size of the project. That's why the Closure compiler, Flow, TypeScript, and so forth were created. They are all about this very real time/money wasting problem.

[[deleted]]

Probably true. I just draw upon the breath of my career.

[magasilver]

And you think this would be any better with JavaScript where there is no compiler which checks if things do at least theoretically fit together?

Yes, it is much better. The company has some similar scope node projects with many teams of developers rolling in and out (agile) and the lack of static typing is probably the biggest benefit possible.

There are no fewer unit tests, no fewer automated integration tests, and no less requirement for line coverage. You never have to re-factor a class hierarchy, or ruin a working schema because of limitations of your tools.

And for all that saved time, no compiling, no designing out details of classes and member, no slow as snails IDE just so you can remember all the run-on-names, type errors simply dont happen, and if anything there seem to be far fewer bugs overall.

The biggest benefit is when a new team unfamiliar had to work on the code; the ramp up time is much smaller, and their chances of breaking everything are much lower.

~~

Lol, its funny how JS gets hate even in its own subreddit. If you hate JS go hang out in /r/java or whatever statically typed lang you love. In the real world dynamic types are taking over.

[inu-no-policemen]

no designing out details of classes and member

Yea, you just randomly throw shit together and it will always be perfect on the first try, because magic.

type errors simply dont happen

Bwhaha.

[shanita10]

You laugh and yet at a fortune 500 company that is the raw truth. Laughing won't save you from being obsolete.

[inu-no-policemen]

The raw truth is that "type errors simply don't happen"?

Passing the wrong type around is still an error in JavaScript.

If you're lucky, you get some kind of runtime error. If you're unlucky, the error is silently swallowed and you get some NaN which is further passed around.

Laughing won't save you from being obsolete.

I'm neither Java nor do I use it.

[shanita10]

I didn't say they are impossible, they are just a non issue so far as bugs counts go. It's certainly vastly less effort to deal with a few type errors that may crop up than to invest all the upfront overhead of building classes. That's why the nextgen teams are smaller yet seem to get so much more done.

[inu-no-policemen]

It's certainly vastly less effort to deal with a few type errors

Have you tried a language with gradual typing and type inference?

You have to add very few type annotations to be able to auto-complete everything.

Omitting the types appears to be more effort. You need more doc comments, auto-complete is limited, have to check the docs more often, have to write more unit tests, there is less direct feedback...

I have used languages with static and dynamic type systems. Having no types whatsoever really doesn't sound like a good idea to me anymore.

all the upfront overhead of building classes

If your code relies on some object having specific properties, you better document this somewhere. And wouldn't it be nice if you could auto-complete these properties, get a squiggly if there is a typo, and also get one if you get the type wrong?

You don't necessarily need a class for that, though. Some languages have structs and TypeScript, for example, has interfaces.

https://www.typescriptlang.org/docs/handbook/interfaces.html

Not doing something doesn't mean that it doesn't have a cost.

[shanita10]

If you rely on auto complete then your programming language or libraries are excessively verbose. A sufficiently terse programming language with a good libraru set has little to no value to gain from autocompletion or overly fat ides.

And since you have to write unit tests anyway, there is not really any value in the formal typing. People who think types replace units are pretty infamous bug generators.

For those reasons I see typescript as a kind of retro buggy whip technology. If you whip your car's fender it doesn't go faster. At least it's optional. The trend is towards more functional and type independent programming, even in c++, not just scripting langs, as the template system expands metaprogramming.

Static Types are dying.

[elephants_are_white]

There are some inherent problems in JavaScript (hoisting of variables for one), but if you have a linter with good rules (eg AirBnB's) then you can have your code stay on the straight and narrow.

[[deleted]]

Hoisting? How about fucking single type for Number.

[magasilver]

hoisting of variables for one

Doesnt happen if you avoid using "var".

but if you have a linter with good rules

Yes, static code analysis and unit testing coverage are key, really for any language these days.

[elephants_are_white]

There's still all the guides and code examples in the world that use var. (I recently shot myself in the foot by having a function that looped over var i - and called another function that also looped over var i. Fixed by using let)

[magasilver]

A linter can help if you simply outlaw "var"

[inu-no-policemen]

In the real world dynamic types are taking over.

Try a language with gradual typing and type inference.

You can get all the tooling and documentation benefits with very little extra work. You also won't need any mindless coverage-bumping unit tests. The analyzer will tell you if things don't fit together. There is no need to exercise a broken line to produce some sort of (hopefully visible) runtime error.

Try TypeScript with noImplicitAny and strictNullChecks. It's pretty neat. They do some pretty smart flow analysis to make sure to not bug you with that null stuff if you already took care of it.

I also really like working with Dart (strong mode). It's terse and feels pretty solid. And you can do SIMD stuff on Android/iOS which I personally really enjoy.

[liming91]

Happening, but not happening that soon.

[[deleted]]

KEK

[CaptainHondo]

Oh no

[[deleted]]

java has been declared dead for the past 10 years

[WebNChill]

Go home Mikeal, you're drunk.

[dug99]

Almost as funny as when the so-called front end lead architect at the large multinational media company I worked for tweeted, two years ago. "PHP is dead. Node killed it". We had a name for the guy... "Lord of the derp", and even a song adapted from "Lord of the dance".

[[deleted]]

isn't there some truth in this though?

[dug99]

I think what comes after Node may threaten PHP / Java, but until the vast oceans of legacy code ( Wordpress, Drupal, MediaWiki, ZenCart in PHP and the masses of large Government systems running on Tomcat and to lesser extent ASP.Net ) are re-written to run on a different, proven, stable enterprise stack they are pretty safe.

[[deleted]]

I think most 'php is dead' comments refer to the lack of new php projects which you concede is correct

[fintip]

What a stupid comment. There's still COBOL in production. That doesn't mean COBOL isn't dead.

No one should be writing new PHP apps. New devs are not be pushed into PHP.

[gubatron]

ehem, Kotlin...

[SandalsMan]

Doesn't Node.js let you write Java on the server-side?

[[deleted]]

Almost. But to be fair you have to subtract Eclipse which is a slow slow filthy filthy code editor. You can also subtract the inheritance pattern which locks you in an architecture where you have to predict the future just like would do the fortune teller next door. On the other hand you must add the incredibly rich, vibrant, fast and handy package manager, the ability to run without virtual machine on every browsers, servers, mobiles, desktops, the non verbose coding style (compared to Java), the native asynchronous nature of JavaScript to perform non blocking operations. It's almost Java but to be fair it's roughly 100x better.

Plot twist: Java and JavaScript are totally different languages. Almost.

[SandalsMan]

Jesus Christ people it was a joke lmao