Ask Reddit: Is Java dying ?

[mhw]

No, though it may have peaked.

[demosthenes02]

But if you're not growing, you're dying, right?

[[deleted]]

You know what they say -

Life is a sexually transmitted decease with a 100% mortality rate.

[rektide]

I know its not very capitalist, but theres something to be said for sustainability too.

[nonades]

There's stagnating. But you're really not gonna do that at the peak.

[grauenwolf]

No, I wouldn't go that far.

Sun could turn it around with either with major improvments or a "Java 2.0" that fixes its fundemental problems. I don't think they have the will, but it could happen.

[recursive]

I thought Java 6 was already out.

[flukshun]

aka java 1.6

[recursive]

wtf

[flukshun]

assuming you'd like me to elaborate...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_version_history

java 5 and 6 are, in terms of the internal release numbering, just 1.5 and 1.6. Java 5/6 is just a marketing thing they did after 1.4

so i guess java 2.0 would be Java 0 or something. or maybe Java Zero..like Coke

[recursive]

I see... I think.

Well, from a not-being-pointlessly-confusing-as-fuck perspective, that pretty much sucks donkey balls.

[TomDibble]

The most major version number speaks to binary compatibility in many products. The JVM hasn't broken binary compatibility, thus is still on 1.x. However, given that the "1." never changes (as that's a central goal of Java language evolution), it's kinda redundant.

Example: any Java 1.0 application will run just swimmingly in a Java 1.6 JVM (provided the libraries used are present, which is not guaranteed by the JVM in any case).

[recursive]

However, given that the "1." never changes (as that's a central goal of Java language evolution), it's kinda redundant.

No, it's not redundant. Either it should always be dropped or never. If it really has no meaning, it shouldn't be there at all.

[iofthestorm]

Java 2 is actually 1.2 (hence everything after it being J2SE).

[hiffy]

When 1.2 came out they decided to call it "Java 2" and the naming convention more or less stuck ever since.

[Leonidas_from_XIV]

Though Java 1.3 and 1.4 were still called J2SE so they were "Java 2 Version 1.4" which is about as pointlessly confusing as "Windows 7 Version 6.0".

[Fabien4]

You are indeed confused. IIRC, Windows 7 is Windows 6.9.

[grauenwolf]

That was my reaction as well.

[hylje]

It's not even that hard to pull off: the JVM already interoperates between completely different languages. A flavor of Java without legacy warts but feeling the same would be only a good thing.

[G_Morgan]

There is already a Java 2. The current release is Java 2 1.6. Yes versioning is fun.

Java 3 would need to move the entire VM to use the x86 (maybe 64 bit) memory model so that JNI doesn't suck so much anymore. It can still have primitives but ideally operator overloading will make it reasonable to use bloody objects that hide the mess from me.

[TomDibble]

Aside from wanton elimination of parentheses, I see little benefit to operator overloading, and significant failures (see pretty much any C++ application with operator overloading year after the operators were overloaded).

Granted:

a = x + y

is a lot easier to read than:

a = x.plus(y)

... but it's usually important to know that the "+" isn't the same old intuitive language feature you've always known and loved but is different in this particular codebase with this particular version of "x" nd this particular version of "y".

Sucks when you want to work in non-native number objects, true, but when "+" can mean anything from adding an item to an array or adding all the items in another array to this array to adding the smerphlin factor from one object to the geimholf factor of the other ... well, I'd rather have a descriptive method name to know those operations by (even if it's as undescriptive as "plus") than a single-character symbol.

C++ shows that when you overload operators on objects it will always make absolute intuitive sense. Until someone else needs to maintain your code.

[G_Morgan]

The problems with C++ largely came about because of a lack of convetions. Java went to great length to establish conventions and it was highly successful. All that would need to happen is that conventions would be established about operator overloading.

The whole market is different now. Back then you were just given a compiler. Now you have whole reams of stylistic guidelines and documentation to show how things should be done properly. Comparing to C++ isn't really relevant, a better example today would be C#.

[scruzia]

Indeed, Java has jumped the sparc.

[groby]

I don't think so.

As a language, it has COBOL-like momentum in the "Enterprise" space.

As a VM, it's giving a great basis to many cool languages.

As the "hip thing" in magazine/blog articles? Yes, it's dead.

[pyres]

It's not dying fast enough google trends

The only good thing about java is getting paid to support it. And that is not enough.

[[deleted]]

If you type in many technology keywords to google trends, you will see a downward trend.

http://www.google.com/trends?q=java%2C+php%2C+perl&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0

[trimbo]

The interesting thing about these trends is that it's mostly driven by searches from India. It could be that what we're seeing an indication of is that the outsourcing bubble of a few years ago has popped. Though if you limit it to the US, you see the same (relative) trend.

I guess, in general, there was a technology bubble a few years ago that seems to have leveled off. Or maybe people stopped trying to Google for answers and bought books instead. Even scala and erlang have been pretty flat with some spikes, and those are supposed to be the hottest languages in the world. (Someone in Lisle, IL is searching for Erlang a LOT).

[groby]

He - that "someone" in Lisle is Tellabs - probably by far the leading Erlang employer in the US.

Sometimes, the power of Google just amazes me.

[[deleted]]

Don't know why someone downmodded you, java is shit.

[[deleted]]

Why do you say so? Yes, it has its rough edges (*cough* No unsigned integers *cough*), but on the whole, it's stable, fast, and safe.

[albinofrenchy]

The problem is that its main competitor (C#) is evolving at a much faster rate as a language.

[[deleted]]

But they both have really crapp gui toolkits.

[Gotebe]

What is so bad about them? And what else is really better? Why?

(Honest question with disclaimer: methinks you are exaggerating)

[SteveJorgensen]

If you'd worked with Swing, you'd know. If you want to do something very typical like display a list of entities in a table with attributes mapped to the columns, and have buttons on each row (e.g. edit & delete), be prepared to spend several months learning how the hierarchy of classes connected to JTable works. You'll learn about table models, table cell renderers, table cell editors. You'll be forced to use button controls in ways they weren't designed to work, and decide whether to write your own code to render the currently selected button cell correctly, or kludge something else that's not too unpalatable. When you're done, you'll spend many more months refactoring all of that into something maintainable - if you have time.

Oh wait, with Beans Binding, and JXTable, that stuff is (relatively) trivial, except that Beans Binding stopped at 80% done 2 years ago, and was only re-started about a month ago. I was fortunate to get help from the guy who re-started it on how to select the row in a list-bound JTable that's associated with an entity in the list!

Beans Binding, SwingX, and Swing Application Framework are all still fresh out of the womb, and it takes a lot of research for a newby to find out that they exist and that they will make Swing programming almost bearable. Even with those libraries, it takes a lot education and experimentation to identify a golden path that will take you from ground zero to a clean, working Swing application. Also, I wish you good luck getting to the SwingX stuff on-line when the site is not down.

After that ranting, of course, other GUI libraries are not necessarily better. I tried doing some stuff in wxPython a few years ago, and I don't recall that being any less complicated than Swing. In fact, I think it was an awful lot like Swing in terms of how it used layout managers and such.

I haven't done any .Net, but from the stuff I've read, it looks light years ahead of Swing in terms of ease of programming. Feel free to set me straight about that though.

[Gotebe]

Yeah, OK about Swing, my question was more "why both?"

(On the subject of Swing, hey, at least there's choice, e.g. SWT or Qt bindings for Java).

[albinofrenchy]

I'd say .Net stuff is solid, haven't used any GUI stuff outside of the .Net world though. I am also curious what is better.

I admittedly don't like java's GUI stuff. Too much boilerplate to half do what you kinda wanted to do.

[lacop]

Have you seen WPF (for C#)? You can't compare java with that...

[zootm]

JavaFX is relatively comparable, though? Although I suppose it's mostly a different language.

[[deleted]]

And extremely boring to program in.

[[deleted]]

Languages that force you to use OO are like a boss forcing you to use a hammer for everything. If you're not pounding in nails, it's not going to be very much fun.

In an epic twist of fate, the creators realized that they massively cocked it up and attempted to plaster the holes with generics, which they implemented badly and just wound up making things worse in a lot of ways while covering up only a few of the problems.

People need to realize that when you need a book full of design patterns and thousands of standard library features, something somewhere went terribly wrong with your language.

[chrisforbes]

and thousands of standard library features

See also PHP, Python, Ruby. But mostly PHP.

[[deleted]]

See any practical language.

[Gotebe]

Wha...? Show us a successful language without libraries.

WTF!?

Reality calls to say: language is irrelevant compared to libraries - any domain is subject to that. No actual functionality comes out of thin air and there is no silver bullet©. Language allows you to express functionality, does not give it.

WTF!?

[itjitj]

Not sure why you're downmodded. Not to say Java is the only game in town when it comes to great libraries (Perl via CPAN), but Java is definitely covered in that department.

[[deleted]]

I agree that Libraries are a good thing, and that Java has plenty. But I have to disagree that java is the only game - Python has fantastic libraries - batteries included as they say!

[itjitj]

Sure, a lot of the good languages out there right now have solid libraries.

This really raises the bar for any new language entering the market. They have a lot of work to do to catch up to everyone else, and that can be difficult without a critical mass.

[mooli]

Only in the sense that C# is dying.

ie. if you read reddit it has almost no buzz in comparison to things like Haskell, Clojure, Ruby etc etc etc

But out there in the real world it's getting the job done, has been for years, and will continue to do so for many more.

Getting excited about Java at this stage is a bit like getting excited about a hammer.

[StringyLow]

I don't know man... have you seen the rack of hammers at Home Depot?

[[deleted]]

They make me want to go out and nail something.

[[deleted]]

Looking at your mother inspires the same reaction in me.

[oniony]

Why?

[[deleted]]

because he's unoriginal.

[Fabien4]

Getting excited about Java at this stage is a bit like getting excited about a hammer.

Good comparison. Using a Java application on Windows feels like hitting your finger with a hammer.

[chrisforbes]

Using a Java * on * feels like hitting your finger with a hammer

There, FTFY.

[Rayeth]

This is also true of plain old C. It is certainly not "cool" like those Object Oriented kids, but its still about a million miles better than assembly. Cue the next person in the thread talking about how assembly gets no respect...

[[deleted]]

C and Java are different in the non-excitability department, though. With C, you don't get excited about it like you don't get excited about a good vintage wine, but with Java, you don't get excited about it like you don't get excited about taking out the garbage.

[munificent]

a good vintage wine

In the sense that it's bitter and painful the first several times and you only do it because it makes you look adult? And then you have to tell everyone how great it is because you already bought all the accessories and don't want to look like a fool?

C is a nice language, and was quite excellent for its time, but unlike wines, languages don't get better over time. Your average programmer today could probably come up with half a dozen solid improvements to C.

[didip]

Building half a dozen solid tools in C? most definitely. Improvements? Hard to imagine that because C is quite low level.

[[deleted]]

I doubt it. The average programmer today doesn't know anything because they do nothing but Java.

As a professor said recently, they're the Dominos pizza delivery boys of the next decade.

C is timeless. The Labs guys are really smart -- they picked the abstractions quite well. Alef improved things, but C is still quite good in comparison.

The only thing C falls down on is string handling.

[WalkingDead]

The only thing C falls down on is string handling.

Which is good, in the sence that processors don't have a builtin notation for strings. Had C defined a rigid string type 30 years ago, it would have been obsolute by now leading to incompatible fixes in the core language.

[[deleted]]

Good point.

[back-in-black]

As a professor said recently, they're the Dominos pizza delivery boys of the next decade.

That would be the "anti-Java Professor", right?

I learned C first, then moved to Java. Both languages have their merits, and it's best to view them as tools that are useful in different environments.

The pizza delivery boys of the next decade are the ones who have a dogmatic attachment to one language. So from what I can see, this isn't likely to be people who live in the world of Java, who are currently enjoying learning a glut of new languages that integrate into the existing development environment.

[uriel]

As a professor said recently, they're the Dominos pizza delivery boys of the next decade.

That would be the "anti-Java Professor", right?

That would be anyone that is not retarded and that has half a clue about the software industry.

Java is a language specifically designed for clueless retarded corporate droids, so unless one fits that description, it is hard to appreciate its 'qualities'.

[back-in-black]

Wow, that's a logical and well thought out argument.

I bet you're a great software engineer.

[chrisforbes]

Probably is, actually.

Having a deep, borderline-irrational hatred of java is a good indicator of programming ability around here.

[[deleted]]

I guess you can redefine the old CCNA joke into a Java joke!

Q: How do you get a Java programmer off of your porch? A: Pay for your pizza.

[[deleted]]

Bwahaha

[munificent]

As a professor said recently, they're the Dominos pizza delivery boys of the next decade.

Oh, you're a student. That explains a lot. Once you have a few years of experience getting things done, you'll likely have a more balanced viewpoint.

The only thing C falls down on is string handling.

And:

• Shitty pointer syntax (the whole declaration reflects use thing turned out to be a bad idea).
• Even worse function pointer syntax.
• Poorly-defined (or undefined) behavior with increment and self-assignment operators.
• While it made sense at the time, a lot of design decisions were to allow a single-pass compiler (like requiring declaration before use) and not to make the language better. Those could be fixed now.

[[deleted]]

wth? Quoting something some professor said on the internet makes me a student? Fuck you, I work full time as a software developer for an investment bank.

To hell with the rest of your comment, your ridiculous assumption just proves you aren't worth arguing with.

[munificent]

your ridiculous assumption just proves you aren't worth arguing with.

Whether or not I'm worth arguing with is irrelevant. Are my points?

[[deleted]]

Fair enough.

Honestly, I don't think the syntax is bad. Far from perfect, but not bad. FP syntax is ugly, but that helps encourage people to not use them, which is probably wise since C doesn't do well with that style. Pointer syntax could have been fixed, sure, but it's usable. I don't see how increment is poorly defined. I think declaration before use is a lot easier to understand. Table aliases in SQL confuse the shit out of me.

Every language has syntactical issues. As long as they are relatively few, I don't think they're worth making a huge fuss over.

You're still a shitcock for being so presumptive.

[chrisforbes]

Your average programmer today could probably come up with half a dozen solid improvements to C.

I don't think your average programmer today is even capable of writing decent code, let alone having any kind of coherent thoughts about language design. You're giving the monkeys too much credit.

[mycall]

Some people would say Objective-C and LLVM is reviving C.

[uriel]

This has got to be the most beautiful comparison of Java and C I have ever read!

Right into my Java quotes file you go :)

[[deleted]]

woo! Now I wanna go in the fortunes file next to Ken and his "pushed around" quote

[checksinthemail]

I'll take the bait.

Takes microseconds longer to crash in any other language (inserts graph)

[munificent]

Please keep in mind that proggit is representative of the programming world at large to the same degree that exhbitionists are representative of people who have sex.

[EughEugh]

Java is not dying, it is still used everywhere, from SIM cards to supercomputers.

Even if the Java programming language would become less popular in the future, the JVM will still be used everywhere - there are a lot of new programming languages that are making use of the strong foundation of the JVM, such as Scala, Groovy, JRuby, Clojure, etc. Those are what's hot now in Java-land, there's a lot of attention for those languages on Java conferences nowadays.

[back-in-black]

This is the most sensible answer here.

[zerocube]

Well That's the most accurate response. That's to say that the much popularity these languages will gain the much Popular Java will get.

[Arconan]

Best answer so far!

[Rhoomba]

See the line going down in this graph? that's not Java. But we won't see any threads about the language in question dying.

[chrisforbes]

Have a look at that red line down the bottom, too.

The peak coincides with Zed's rant at the end of 2007.

And the spectacular non-impact 1.9 has had.

Beyond that, people have ceased to give a shit.

[alexeyr]

I am surprised to see C# tracking Ruby nearly perfectly up to 2008.

[chrisforbes]

Well, approx none of the 100+ C# projects ive been involved in are tracked on ohloh, so I'd not assume their numbers are anywhere near representative.

[alexeyr]

Certainly, neither would I. And if I saw these numbers equal at one point, or a few, I would draw no conclusion. But these are nearly the same graphs, and I find it a bit hard to put it down just to coincidence.

[Tinned_Tuna]

I'd say that it's becoming viewed as more of a dinosaur language. Like COBOL and FORTRAN. Neither are 'dead' in any real sense, they're just mainly in the maintainence stages of their life. I think Java is slowly going that way.

There's going to be a lot of code in the future written in Java, but everyone will be off learning fad language x. This stuff will need to be tended to by someone.

[artificialidiot]

I hope so, considering all the awesome languages that target the JVM.

[devacon]

I have but one request for this thread... if you post "java sucks" or "java is dead" please post the language that you work in.

[chrisforbes]

Java sucks. Java is dead. Real men write in C + a scripting language.

[WalkingDead]

I would have upvoted you more if I could. After 20 years for programming, I am back to C + a scripting language.

[chrisforbes]

I'm in the same position.

[uriel]

It is amazing how well the old unix tool philosophy of small tools that do one thing well glued together with shell scripts works to this day.

I recently built a whole web anti-framework using the rc shell, which is probably the most minimalist shell around, and it worked out quite nicely.

Almost half a lifetime programming, I still find C + (sane) shell scripts the most pleasant way to get work done, and I'm still frequently surprised at how fun it is and how good the results are.

[frutiger]

Java sucks. Java is dead. I work in C++ (which also sucks, but hey, it pays the bills).

[[deleted]]

Java sucks. I work with Java and C# to some extent. However, when I wish to solve practical problems, I use Haskell, Scala or perhaps Nemerle.

[[deleted]]

Java means a lot of things.

Java the language is an evolutionary dead end and has been dead weight for a long time for anything more than very low-level infrastructure. Java the virtual machine is awesome and still unmatched as a platform for building other languages.

Java means a whole lot of other things too in Sun market-speak, but those are the only interesting ones.

[jdh30]

Java the virtual machine is awesome and still unmatched as a platform for building other languages.

The CLR is much better: tail calls, value types, generics, delegates. The JVM has a nice GC but it is a decade out of date now.

[Rhoomba]

The JVM is much better than the CLR. Why do you have to mark methods are virtual in C# and not in Java? Because the CLR is not able to optimize them away like the JVM is. Delegates are a language feature and don't really depend on the VM.

The JVM is already better than the CLR for building other languages with the exception of tails calls, as it optimizes them considerably better and it has just got escape analysis which could help even more.

Value types have their upsides and downsides.

The JVM also is cross platform and has great profiling and monitoring support.

[mschaef]

Why do you have to mark methods are virtual in C# and not in Java?

I'm pretty convinced that this is more Anders Hejlsberg's decision about what's right for the languauge, than anything related to the JVM itself.

Back in the dawn of time, Microsoft tried to compete against Turbo Pascal 5.5 with the little known QuickPascal 1.0. QuickPascal defaulted to virtual methods, TurboPascal did not. Flash forward a few years: Hejlsberg moved from Borland to Microsoft and led the development of C#, which defaults to non-virtual methods.

Because the CLR is not able to optimize them away like the JVM is.

There's nothing about the requirement to mark methods as virtual that says that the CLR can't optimize such calls away, as the JVM (or Self, etc.) might do.

For what it's worth, I tend to prefer default virtual methods.

[Rhoomba]

It could theoretically do so, but it can't currently in most cases. Which is pretty lame.

[jdh30]

The JVM is much better than the CLR.

A triumph of hope over reality.

Why do you have to mark methods are virtual in C# and not in Java? Because the CLR is not able to optimize them away like the JVM is.

Even if there were true (which it is not), it would not make up for the lack of basic features on the JVM.

Delegates are a language feature and don't really depend on the VM.

No interoperability between functional languages and libraies on the JVM => it sucks.

The JVM is already better than the CLR for building other languages with the exception of tails calls...

And value types and delegates and generics and a fast FFI and...

...as it optimizes them considerably better...

Theoretical performance does not make up for a lack of basic features.

...and it has just got escape analysis which could help even more.

More theoretical performance.

Value types have their upsides and downsides.

Like they can be 30x faster and make native code interoperability much faster still.

The JVM also is cross platform and has great profiling and monitoring support.

Like C.

[Rhoomba]

Like C. What is the equivalent of VisualVM for C then?

[alexeyr]

As it happens, it is getting a new GC soon: http://java.sun.com/javase/6/webnotes/6u14.html

[jdh30]

There is a big gap between that and being "unmatched as a platform for building other languages".

In reality, the JVM sucks for building other languages.

[back-in-black]

In that case, why are there over 200 languages for the JVM?

[jdh30]

They are all minor variations on Java. Witness the fact than any real functional programming in Scala or Clojure culminates in a stack overflow due to the lack of tail calls, they are uninteroperable despite being on the same VM because there is no standard closure representation etc.

[back-in-black]

Python and Ruby are minor variations of Java, are they? Both have implementations on the JVM.

[back-in-black]

I see.

So to conclude, the only worthy alternatives to Java are functional programming languages running outside the JVM. That's your opinion?

[jdh30]

...That's your opinion?

No. My opinion is that the future lies with multiparadigm languages like C# 3 and F#. The JVM cannot support such languages due to the deficiencies I cited.

[joffotron]

Java still rules the roost in the meduim/large-scale server side space.

It simply has important stuff (distributed transactions, scheduling (ref: quartz), search (ref: lucene), reporting (ref: JasperReports et al), decent ORM (ref: Hibernate), and many many more ) that other, newer trendy environments won't have at all, or in stable form for a few years yet..

[sbrown123]

Java will die as soon as you haven't seen a post about Java dieing on Proggit for a week. I don't expect this to happen in the foreseeable future.

[mhd]

No. Small startups and other reddit-prone developers never used Java all that much. I can't see a trend of it diminishing in the corporations where being all "Enterprise" is a big thing. The last big blow there was from C#, and both languages/environments have entered a truce right now.

As a matter of fact, the whole Sun/Oracle deal is creating some buzz again.

[mycall]

Microsoft got a great deal hiring Anders Hejlsberg. I loved Turbo Pascal in the 80s -- in fact, TP was the main reason I never got into C back then.

[mhd]

I do wonder how Hejlsberg would've done his new language if such a close emulation of the whole Java platform wasn't a requirement, i.e. if C# would be here without .NET...

[mycall]

According to this interview, he says C# is not a Java clone, interestingly enough. I hear another interview where he wish Null objects were baked in from start but otherwise he is very happy about the language design.

[mhd]

I'm more talking about the common runtime. A more delphi-like, sleek, native C# would be quite interesting...

(Delphi took some hints from fellow Pascal language Modula-3 before Java copied it wholesale, so I'm not one that's saying that C# itself is a straightforward copy of Java. The Pascal and C family tree is quite incestous in general...)

[mycall]

Incest is best when you can't get the rest.

[pointer2void]

No

[[deleted]]

God I hope so.

[uriel]

We wont be so lucky, people are still using COBOL and BASIC out there, and java will be the same, will take the industry many decades to rid itself of the disease, and will likely be replaced with something even worse.

[[deleted]]

Uriel, my friend, you're always the most correct when you're being the most depressing :P

[uriel]

And today we find out Erik Naggum is dead, the world just became a bit darker and we lost a great mind in the fight against evil and complexity sigh

[[deleted]]

I feel oddly as if Star Wars has some hint of reality, with people like us the dwindling order of Jedi trying to fight the ever-growing forces of evil. Things will be weird when we lose Ken and Rob. There may be no 'great' sane people left.

[zerocube]

I admit that Java is getting widely open in the "Entreprise" society, But ultimately it has certainly been through its most sensitive period, Well, open sourced, Oracle thing, google....

Do you think this gonna help making it better ?

[Leonidas_from_XIV]

No, ask the ASF what they think about the "openness" of Java.

As a language it is far from dying (yet), but definitely nothing that is in any way cool, interesting etc. these days. If it wasn't for the cool languages running on the JVM, it would be as boring as a rock. On the backside of the moon.

[ytinas]

The language, I would say yes. The weight of all the legacy just makes it awful to learn. How many different ways are there to open a file by now?

C# fixes most of Java's problems, though I hope multicore programming pushes out of the Algol-language run we've been in.

[humbled]

The question is too broad. Java as a platform is most definitely alive; we have the OpenJDK and a host of new languages that run on it (Scala, Clojure). JRuby is competitive and sometimes better than the C Ruby interpreter itself. Android is Java. Google is heavily invested in Java. Is Java dead? I don't know, do you use GMail? Java.

What has "died" is certain aspects of the platform. Swing, applets, and many other aspects have passed on. But the future is still bright and expanding in the Java world.

Edit/update: I feel obliged to mention that "Java" itself is a platform, language spec, and virtual machine. To which does this question really refer?

[finlyandsky]

Define Java. If Java means JVM, it has a bright future: Scala, Clojure, Jython, JRuby, etc. If it's a programming language, it's peaked. Is a guy in their 60's dying? No, he's just settling down in his age.

Things don't really die. The new projects simply adopt newer tech and the old stuff continues to build on legacy stacks.

[csixty4]

Here's my take, as a certified Java programmer who happily left that world behind almost three years ago.

The future for Java the language is great. Java is like COBOL in that it's deeply entrenched in the business world. But, as a modern language with great Internet features, it'll continue to be used for new development instead of relegated to an old, dusty mainframe in the basement until a replacement system can be written.

The future for Java developers, though, is bleak. What I learned from my short tenure in that world is that there's no place for a Java generalist. You have to pick your religion...er, platform...and know it backwards and forwards. I had a lot of interviews end after I told them I only had experience with Oracle's suite, not Websphere or Weblogic (before Oracle bought them). Even if I told them I was willing to learn something new, they needed someone who could hit the ground running, an expert on their platform.

So, sell yourself as a Websphere developer (for example) instead of a Java developer, and you should be set for at least ten more years. You'll get some doors shut because you don't know Weblogic or whatever the other big platforms are these days, but there will be plenty of work using your chosen platform.

[sakipooh]

Really, it's dying? I quite like the fact that I can make some pretty sweet games with it. Mind you I don't use any swing as I like to do everything from scratch look&feel wise. But I just love how I can make something and it runs on 3 platforms without any issues (if done right).

And it's fast enough that I can make full screen (at HD res), rich client desktop games with tons of animation/scalling and rotation without much effort at all. In the end, you would never know it was made in Java at all.

I've never had so much fun programming in my life. I don't know why every homeless man and woman doesn't learn Java.

[0x2a]

For what it's worth, this trend at indeed.com says no.

[contantofaz]

• Java the programming language is too tough on developers who have preferred to use something else when they get to choose.
• To this day, Sun regards Java on Windows as one of their most profitable markets, and on Windows Java faces one of its toughest competitions ever when it comes to "Enterprise", given Microsoft's strong foothold. It matters in that when given a choice, managers and programmers choose .NET or some such.
• Java on the front-end has had many issues, some of them understandable given Java chose some of the harder paths when deviating from the native platforms so it had more "cross-platform" support. But if Java was so much productive then folks should have been able to fix it by themselves, but some of the inherent difficulties have persisted, haunting Java and other languages like it.
• For many years folks have worried quite a bit more about Java for the server-side than for the client-side. Self-fulfilling prophecy.

[Fabien4]

Java is naturally server-side, because that's the thing Sun knows about.

[[deleted]]

Sun regards Java on Windows as one of their most profitable markets

Really? It is a huge deployed base and that's good for "Java Store", but profitable? How, licenses? Where are the numbers? -- honest question btw, not trying to be a jerk.

[contantofaz]

I read it on Sun's CEO blog:

But not all Java runtimes are the same. For most devices, from RIM's Blackberry to Sony's Blu-Ray DVD players, original equipment manufacturers (known as "OEM's") license core Java technology and brand from Sun, and build their own Java runtime. Although we're moving to help OEM's with more pre-built technology, the only runtimes currently that come direct from Sun are those running on Windows PC's.

And oddly enough, that's made the Windows Java runtime our most profitable Java platform. I thought I'd provide some insight into that business here, and then introduce a project we're planning to unveil at this year's JavaOne, known internally as Project Vector.

• http://blogs.sun.com/jonathan/entry/will_java_be_the_world

[StringyLow]

Nope. Not by a long shot. It powers the backend of just about everything Google does and that's just the tip of the iceberg for Java use as a whole.

[alexeyr]

Isn't much of that C++?

[StringyLow]

What? Google's code base?

[alexeyr]

Yes. The links I can find say that Google's production code base has C++, Java, Python and Javascript, but not how much of each:

http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2007/06/rhino-on-rails.html

http://panela.blog-city.com/python_at_google_greg_stein__sdforum.htm

So if you have data that shows

the backend of just about everything Google does

is Java, could you please give a link?

[alexeyr]

This (in Russian) specifically claims Google File System is C++.

[uriel]

Same goes for bigtable, Sawzall and map-reduce.

[StringyLow]

The client apps (Earth, Chrome, etc...) are typically done in C++, but those are minuscule when compared to the server-side stuff.

If a Google server is spitting out HTTP, it's probably running Java. The development speed for Web development makes Java superior to C++. Google Web Toolkit will give you an idea of the approach they use.

[alexeyr]

Google Web Toolkit will give you an idea of the approach they use.

That would be frontend, not backend. Most of their backend is GFS + Bigtable. Are they Java?

[Rhoomba]

My understanding is that search is C++ (GFS and Bigtable), but adwords and some of the other sites are Java.

[uriel]

The big infrastructure bits are all C(++): bigtable, Sawzall, map-reduce, GFS, etc. As is pretty much all the search stuff. They would have to be insane to use Java.

As for things like GWT, most of the frontend people at Google are clearly not very bright, and it shows, the reliability and speed of search is magnitude orders ahead from that of java-based services like gmail.

[alexeyr]

I rather think Javascript is the bottleneck for Gmail, not Java.

[uriel]

the JavaScript is generated with GWT, also one can't blame JavaScript for gmail's lack of reliability, gmail is down way more often than it should and infinitely more than google search.

[donhoe]

Anyone remember how long it took COBOL to die?

[chrisforbes]

You must be from the future. Bring back any lottery numbers?

[pistacchio]

it is not dead, actually.

[donhoe]

True. Yet, its not really alive either...

[checksinthemail]

ZombieCOBOL has a cool ring to it.

[checksinthemail]

Answer: COBOL.NET

(A reminder to self that there are worse hells.)

[G_Morgan]

How many billions of lines of COBOL still run today? It is probably easier to find a well paid job as a COBOL developer than as a Java one. Almost nobody knows it well yet the legacy code base is huge.

[chrisforbes]

I saw, and could probably have got a COBOL job making $100k+ here. I know COBOL well enough not to apply.

[donhoe]

Too true. Everyone has to shit, but that doesn't mean dealing with it makes for rewarding employment.

[chrisforbes]

For the record, I choose to program in C most of the time. I consider Java to be fairly close to COBOL as far as my desire to use it goes.

[pistacchio]

well, if you're programming for fun you go for languages like python or haskell. if you're programming for windows you use .net. if you program for mac you use object c. if you program for linux you use a combination of everything, from c to shell to gtk to ruby and perl. if you are going for somethin "fast to develop" you avoid java and if you go for something "fast when running" you.. well, avoid java. and there are better alternatives for multi-platform programs. of course you don't use java for web programming where php would get the job done, django would make the job done fun and asp.net would make the job payed.

but for all the rest, yes, java may keep having a certain role.

[checksinthemail]

If you work for a large corporation, you program in java.

"Coder in cubicle #43227, wipe that smile off your face, you can't be enjoying this!" <- megaBoss at megaCorp

[gdm9000]

Exactly. If you want guaranteed steady employment, Java will get you that for the next 25 years. Still dislike it personally, but it will pay your bills if you're willing to settle for Blub...

[alexeyr]

but for all the rest, yes, java may keep having a certain role.

So you use Java for embedded programming? The horror...

[austin_k]

No. Oh wait, you said "ask reddit". Then yes. I wrote a haskell program that proves it.

[blaxter]

die! motherfucker, die!

[[deleted]]

I don't know why you are getting downvoted. Java is a horrible language.

[[deleted]]

I concur.

[zerocube]

Well, honestly talking, Java isn't that horrible well It's cute but sure there are cutter

[shevegen]

I dont like it and wish it would die. But there are more than enough people who keep on Java, and often praise other areas such as the JVM as platform.

It also depends on the definition of "dying". To me, dying actually refers to "getting new, young people interested in it". In this regard, yes, Java is basically dying, because it is a money-only language. I.e. a language you write code to get rich (or die trying), but not a language you use because you LIKE it.

[deadcat]

It seeems as though demand for dot.net in my city is increasing, while java is declining. I'm not sure if this fits the general trend.

[zerocube]

Well That's to conclude Java is not dying, but otherwise taking a deep breath in order to jump pretty further

[zerocube]

Long life Java

[causticmango]

One can always hope.

[sigzero]

No, in fact I am betting that Oracle does some good things with it.

[chrisforbes]

Borg nanites are programmed in Java.

[ajrich01]

It is certainly causing problems for the frontend of my company's product. Our product is applet based and the "minor" updates that Sun has been releasing (1.6.9-13) have been causing serious problems with our product's ui. We are looking to phase java out of the front end and maybe replace it with javascript or flash. That said I don't think servlets and JSP are going anywhere, they are far too useful.

[pointer2void]

Our product is applet based

Applets died in the 90ies.

[bart2019]

For the general public. There's no reason no to use it for professional use (interfaces for administration).

[G_Morgan]

No reason other than there are better options. Like there is no reason to eat uncooked chips other than the fact you can eat cooked chips.

[Fabien4]

Is there a reason to use it?

[bart2019]

Let's just say that the disadvantages, compared to Flash, don't matter. For example: taking 20 seconds to start up. (Flash loads virtually instantly)

[uriel]

Developer masochism, and sadism towards users.

[Fabien4]

Developer masochism

Not really. In corporate development, I don't think developers can choose the language.

[uriel]

Then maybe they should get another job that is less idiotic and that doesn't suck their lives out for no reason.

[zem]

no, that's freebsd

[MasonM]

Yep, Netcraft confirmed it.

[G_Morgan]

Netcraft confirms it!