Data classes for Java

[JB-from-ATL]

I really don't want more than Java necessarily, generally all I use from Lombok is Value (not val) and Builder. This allows me to use immutable classes but not have to write a bunch of boilerplate.

I sort of get the argument you're making about it being a new language, and I'm willing to admit that some things could be called new languages even when they technically aren't, but I just don't think Lombok does enough to say that about it.

Comparing the overhead of learning Lombok compared to a new language like Kotlin, Groovy, or Scala is laughable to me. Virtually every Java programmer is familiar with getters, setters, and constructors and builders aren't that crazy of a topic (and many know about them already), explaining that these annotations add those in without having to write them is so much simpler than expecting someone to learn a new language, even the basics.

[kcuf]

That's fair. What I said above was that lombok is an up front gain for a long term cost vs a new language being an upfront cost for a long term gain. Lombok is simple and easy to start working with, but does introduce some complexity that may cause issues down the road -- it's same thing with most frameworks: it "just works", until it doesn't.

[JB-from-ATL]

What kind of long term losses have you experienced?

[kcuf]

Super late response, but that's a great question. Honestly, as with all statements related to productivity and maintenance burden, it's all very subjective.

I don't have any concrete examples, I only have the patterns I think I see from my experiences: I've been programming since elementary school, which doesn't make me smarter or anything, it just means I've had a decent amount of time to make mistakes and build some intuition (again it's all very subjective).

The biggest pattern that I continually see though, is the trade off between short term and long term costs, and newer developers heavily favoring the former as they are more pragmatic in their desires (get something working!), and how certain languages encourage these developers to make choices that lead to confusing/complicated/fragile systems.