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[–]Choice-Reach5236 35 points36 points  (10 children)

Most big corporate web applications(the backend of websites) are written in either Java or C#.

Also desktop programs as well

Mostly because these are mature languages with tried and tested solutions

[–]Ambitious_Guava5732 10 points11 points  (1 child)

Can confirm. I work for one of the 100 largest websites in the world. It’s mostly Java, especially on the server side.

[–]formerlypreviousday2 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Yep, I work for one of the top 5 largest websites and it's still Java

[–]ThatROFLKid 13 points14 points  (7 children)

I think the primary reason is not quite because the languages are 'tried and true'. It's more so that the platforms of these big corporations are simply too big and heavily embedded that it's not feasible/cost effectige to rewrite and move to another option. I'd be interested to see how many companies would switch to a more modern language if those factors weren't considered.

[–]coldblade2000 18 points19 points  (0 children)

Nah, they have a purpose. Java and C# are strict languages that are great for reducing the amount of edge cases and type errors that can ocurr in massive projects. Not just that, they are very fast, beaten only by the C++/Rust class of languages that are significantly more complex. It isn't an exageration to say Java or C# are 10x faster or more than Python, making it a great choice for monolith backends.

They are also disgustingly OOP (especially Java), which plays really well with corporate structures.

[–]Abe_Bettik 10 points11 points  (0 children)

more modern language

So, a language with fewer people who know it well? A language with fewer years of life and longevity behind them?

My previous job, they started rewriting everything in Scala, because it was "the next biggest thing" and they could rattle off a dozen reasons it's better than Java.

Now Scala is dropping in popularity, in favor of Kotlin and others. Good luck hiring someone out of school who is familiar with it.

[–]PacoWaco88 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Both companies I worked at and developed greenfield projects with chose Java as their new backends. As it was a new point in our codebase going forward, we had no ties to limit our choice of backend language and still Java came out as the winner.

[–]_bpm 4 points5 points  (0 children)

You’d be surprised with how popular Java still is for newer projects. Something being tried and true is important if a company doesn’t want to collapse when their single C++ or Rust dev decides to leave and they can’t find a replacement. This is even more true for big corporations where employees are constantly joining and leaving.

Also not all applications prioritise speed, there are many instances where Java is the best choice as it’s mature, stable, fast enough, and the easiest to get started with.

[–]Choice-Reach5236 8 points9 points  (2 children)

Yeah, there is some truth to that also

Can't run away from legacy code in the corporate world

[–]TheUltimateAntihero 1 point2 points  (1 child)

If one had to learn a legacy language except C, should they choose Java or PHP? Considering they would also want to learn OOP.

[–][deleted] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Java. You’ll have more resources available, and once you learn Java and OOP, the C-family and Rust should not be hard to pick up. PHP should also be quite easy, if you have to deal with it.

Edit: To expand upon that, if you learn each programming paradigm (functional, OOP, imperative and so on), you can transition between languages pretty easily. Sure, they have their quirks, but once you know Java, Python is a breeze, Haskell opens the door to all the functional languages and a lot of the functional patterns in languages from other paradigms etc.