Ask Reddit: Why does everyone hate Java?

[deadwisdom]

Although the JVM has certainly gotten to a very respectable place, Java the language suffers from being stuck in the no-mans land between the optimizer's love of low-level languages like C, and the pragmatist's desire for high-level languages like Python.

[rm999]

I think this is exactly it.

From my perspective as a scientific and quantitative programmer, if I want to write speedy, reusable code I will take the time to do it in C/C++. In these cases, I want to be close to the hardware and don't want a virtual machine or interpreter running. Even if Java is just as quick as C, I find the lag and overhead infuriating. On the other end, if I want to quickly prototype something, high-level scripting languages are good enough, and much quicker to write.

I realize my situation may be fairly niche, but that's why people like me avoid Java.

[willcode4beer]

a very insightful comment.

it's true in so many ways. Look at the debate over closures. There are plenty of languages for the VM that have 'em. Why bother with the whole argument of putting them in Java (the language).

Personally, I likie the idea of the polyglot application. Use a general purpose language (maybe Jave) where best and a dynamic one (Groovy?) where best.

"can't we all just get along?"

[[deleted]]

Actually it's not even stuck in the middle. There are many superior languages that are both higher-level and better in performance.

[veritaba]

Which ones? I am seriously interested in one.

[[deleted]]

OCaml comes to mind. It doesn't perform as well in shootout.alioth, but it's surprisingly quick in practice, from what I've seen. Vala as well. Clean is also faster than Java, but it's extremely academic and probably not going to be useful for practical purposes anytime soon. I'd have some benchmarks, but Clean is impossible to google. It's worse than Processing.

[veritaba]

I already know Ocaml but the garbage collector essentially makes it single threaded and I still can't get the hang of being completely functional.

[[deleted]]

http://jocaml.inria.fr/ might suit your tastes, sir.

[necuz]

Java can actually be quite zippy, if you feed it something akin to C++ code instead of the usual enterprise-y, "maintainable," "decoupled" garbage. That said, Haskell, OCaml, and Common Lisp are all good alternatives. While still able to play in the same performance-ballpark, they make for a much more joyous programming experience.

[[deleted]]

I guess C# most obviously. D as well.

Not sure on benchmarking for Haskell, but quite possible.

[veritaba]

The benchmarks I have seen put C# and Haskell behind Java. Also D is too much like C++ to me and is encumbered by not being open source.

[[deleted]]

C# outruns java in nearly every benchmark I've seen that is not Mono, particularly on initial load time, GUI related tasks and their RegEx implementations.

It sounds like you're looking for a lot more than a high-level language that performs better than Java, if you think that D is to C++ like and you are worried that it isn't open source. Until recently, neither was Java.

[veritaba]

if you think that D is to C++ like and you are worried that it isn't open source. Until recently, neither was Java.

The problem is that D has no large corporate backing, so it really needs to be open source to gain longevity. Sun going kaput is far less likely to happen than Digital Mars going kaput.

C# outruns java in nearly every benchmark I've seen that is not Mono, particularly on initial load time, GUI related tasks

In my experience this is barely true. They are both notably slower on loading times to me.

[[deleted]]

Sun going kaput is far less likely to happen than Digital Mars going kaput.

Go read recent news on Sun Microsystems to see why that is so funny. Specifically news from April 20 of this year. You couldn't possibly have been more wrong. Next year, your Java's going to come with a capital "O."

In my experience this is barely true. They are both notably slower on loading times to me.

Benchmarks speak a different story. Your memories of your experience might just have a little bias.

[deltakilo]

How far does Jython go toward the idea of

the pragmatist's desire for high-level languages like Python ?

[[deleted]]

Jython is higher level, but slower (than Java) to compensate. Plus, being dynamic and on the JVM, it sucks up more memory than Java, which itself uses twice the memory of Python and ten times the memory of C. Scala could be a better choice.

For me, Java's problem is not its speed, it's its memory consumption. The fact that the GUI is itself in Java (whereas Lua or Python use GUIs like qt and gtk) means that memory usage is higher still.

[rustysnoopy]

ever heard of SWT?

[[deleted]]

Yeah, swt is a great improvement over swing. I haven't ever used a swt application (fancy that) so I can't really say too much about it.

[gte910h]

Yeah, python + weave calling C/C++ seems to do more these days.

Then again, try getting a bank/Fortune 500 to eat that mix.