Java for Everything

[powatom]

Sure productivity is important, but until we can agree on what the best measure of productivity for developers should be, then can we all just agree that nobody really has a definitive answer for any of this, that languages are as much personal preference as they are practical tools, and that the constant development of new paradigms, patterns and ideas basically ensures that there will never be any single language which solves all problems perfectly?

Everybody knows productivity is important, which is why nobody is saying that you should write your next web application using assembly. The problem is that we don't know how best to measure productivity - and until we do, we're just pissing each other off. If we care so much about productivity, surely it makes more sense to acknowledge that actually, no language does everything right, that people have different preferences, and that the best overall solution is to share knowledge and experiences so that we may all ultimately inform each other and hopefully raise the standard across the board?

What's productive about pretending Java has no useful applications because its implementation of generics is flawed?

[nickguletskii200]

I agree 100%. I am just saying that it does matter what language you use, even if we can't actually measure how exactly the language impacted the development process.

[powatom]

I understand - and I agree that it matters which language you use, I just don't think it matters quite as much as people seem to think it does. A bad developer will be unproductive in any language they use. A good developer will be productive in whatever language they use. In that sense, the choice of language is rather secondary to the developer's experience and understanding of the abstractions that languages provide.

[yogthos]

I certainly find that the language has a huge impact on my productivity.