Fuck Oracle.
One Rich Asshole Called Lary Ellison
Lary Ellison is one of the richest men in the world right and owns some kind of private island or something that he bought basically after showing his shares of Oracle stock?
His political contributions are really on brand. He funded election deniers in 2022.
Also I’ve heard Oracle has a bad reputation when it comes to government contracts, very expensive poor quality software ripping off our taxpayers. I think they ought to be blacklisted or at-least require extra review due to their reputation. CUNY paid Oracle over $600 million and look at what that got them: https://pscbc.blogspot.com/2013/03/cuny-first-computer-system-to-aid.html. To be fair the article does claim that “The project required an expenditure of up to a billion dollars to do it right. CUNY Central offered far less. All but one of the bidders dropped out as a result”. I’m confused why it needs to be so expensive, even $600 million seems like way too much.
Lol, as Javanese, It’s funny that Javanese ethnic name -> Javanese coffee -> Javanese programming language.
People still keep thinking that I was a programmer or making a typo of Japanese everytime I mention I speak Javanese.
The language was initially called Oak after an oak tree that stood outside
Things could have been a lot different!
“fucking oak what the fuck” still works so not that different
Oakscript does have a certain ring to it
Java was also my first introduction to programming as it was included in Computer Science in final year of school (at college, we did the trusty C).
I think they have replaced Java with Python now in schools because of the latter’s popularity and also because many would argue, Python is slightly easier to learn than Java.
Python is easy, but it can also be infuriating. Every time I use it, I’m reminded how much I loathe the use of whitespace to define blocks, and I really miss the straightforward type annotations of strong, non-dynamically typed languages.
Most overrated language imho. I actually enjoy Java more.
You can annotate types in Python, and it’s actually pretty nice when used with Pyright/Pylance.
Oh, I know you can, but it’s optional and the syntax is kind of weird. I prefer languages that are strongly typed from the ground up and enforce it.
But nobody else does, and I need it more on code I am consuming than producing. In fact, many functions rely on being able to send various types for different behavior. Dynamic programming is crazy to me. It’s like guessing. I don’t know what type your code is accepting and I have to guess based on the name of read your code directly.
use bython, python with braces XD
Hasn’t been updated since 2018. Does it still work?
i honestly don’t know. i’ve read about it here and there but never actually tried it
I don’t think weakly- or dynamically-typed languages are a good thing to base computer science curriculum around. Yes, it’s “easier”. But you will genuinely have a FAR better understanding the language and the logic you’re writing in it if you work in the scope of strong and static typing - or, at least have linters that force you to (e.g. mypy for Python)
30 years of pain
Java is IMHO one of the most underrated platforms outside of enterprise environments.
Most people also forget, that Java is not only a language, but also a platform, an ecosystem and active research is applied to many parts of Java.
Concerning Oracle: OpenJDK is actively supported by very different but big and capable companies (IBM, Amazon, Eclipse Foundation…). The quality of the language, libraries and documentation needs people which are payed to work on this, full time.
Bring to this the free IDEs one can get for Java - Eclipse and Netbeans are a little bit old school, but offer everything to build/debug and develop complex software.
Java is not my favorite programming language, but when I want to write interesting software and ensure it will be running for the next decade w/o significant changes, Java is really hard to beat.
Of course, in hindsight we know how to do a lot of things better as they were done in Java. Still, what other open source Language/Platform/documentation with the backing of capable companies and really independent and interoperable builds are out there?
One last note to all people which were damaged by Java in university or school: Usually the teachers/professors/lecturers have no real world experience of software development besides the usually university projects, and for the usual university projects which basically means getting small to midsize projects to run Java is total overkill.
Don’t confuse this with real world software projects in the industry, which are mission critical and need to work a decade from now on. Java was always a bread and butter language, but one which learned from other languages and even the verbosity makes sense, once one dives into code written a few years back by another person.
Usually the teachers/professors/lecturers have no real world experience of software development besides the usually university projects
Adding to this: university projects are built on a relatively short timeframe compared to many industry projects. The growing pains that typically occur after a few years of continuous development is unlikely with the small scale of university projects.
I wouldn’t go to a university professor for advice on how to build a system that will last a decade of development.
My 2 cents is that it would have flourished a lot longer if eclipse wasn’t stretched so thin like using a very thick amorphous log that is somehow still brittle? And ugly? As a bookmark.
This dude came to my spouses work to do some sort of work/help (I don’t know the exact details) and someone wrote a doc he needed to review. It was a lot of work not just like a few notes but a proper doc and all he wrote back upon “reviewing” it was a thumbs up emoji!! 👍🏻 everyone was shocked lol, no feed back, no notes nothing just 👍🏻
👍
I liked Java a lot more before Oracle acquired Sun. I’ve used Oracle databases enough to hate Oracle with the passion of a supernova.
I think I need to clear a common misconception people seem to have here: Oracle has very little to do with Java.
At most, Oracle has the following connection to Java:
- Own the trademark
- Have a build of the JDK/JRE with commercial support.
However, Java as a language’s baseline comes from OpenJDK, an open source (GPL 2.0) community project which is upstream to several builds including Oracle’s JVM. It follows a “bazaar” like development model similar to the Linux kernel where you can see their mailing lists and track what’s being worked on. Anyone can contribute and the code is on Github: https://github.com/openjdk/jdk.
That being said, you don’t even need to use Oracle’s JDK (it sucks IMO) and use one of the community provided builds of OpenJDK. OpenJDK builds are provided by Eclipse, Amazon, Azul, Bellsoft and even Microsoft provides JDK/JRE builds. These are free of cost and have longer term support than Oracle’s offering.
Open jdk is where it’s at
Java was stagnating under Sun, unfortunately. I hate to say it, but Oracle probably saved Java.
But!.. Sun Java included internationalized set of Lucida fonts with proper hinting. Oracle removed that for whatever reason.
Haha. I guess I never noticed.
I think Java was first released just after I graduated. I do program Java at my day job though, and I don’t mind it. It has its quirks but I find I can express myself using Java, but I probably try to think towards much in OO paradigms when I design and code.
I remember Java being seen as the best thing ever in the 90’s, and it was considered “cool” at that time. So cool even, that it became the programming equivalent of a hammer, every coding challenge looked like a nail for which you could use it.
It’s a cycle all popular languages go through. First only experimental applications and super opinionated programmers use it. Then everyone wants to use it for everything. Then it finds a niche where it excels and settles.
I remember Java, C++, Python, and JavaScript going through those phases as well. Currently, everything is Rust.
I’m still wondering what Java’s niche is, it seems like it does everything, but nothing particularly well. I guess it found a home on Android, but I don’t think that’s because it’s particularly well-suited for it.
Java is still massive in corporate software. As in, internal software for corporation’s day to day operations. Machinery management, inventory software, point-of-sale applications, floor management, automated finance tracking. Stuff that isn’t really cool or talked much about.
And of course there’s Java’s most important job. Coming up with features and syntax that Microsoft can copy and steal for C#.
Sure, cause c# doesn’t have any original feature’s whatsoever
/s
Unlike other older languages, such as Cobol and Fortran – which are still used, but almost always in legacy projects – Java has constantly evolved to meet new demands while maintaining backward compatibility.
can’t speak on the FORTRAN claim but with COBOL this couldn’t be less true. last i checked the newest Enterprise COBOL LTS is newer than Java’s
The difference is people still write Java, regardless of whether it’s a dated pos or not, so the use cases have evolved
Then there’s the use of the JVM/JRE which have evolved even more due to Scala, Clojure & Kotlin
COBOL is still being updated because, believe it or not, people are still writing COBOL
People aren’t writing new projects in COBOL. It’s mostly to maintain 40+ year old systems. Unless you’re working in the bank sector, it’s unlikely you will write a program in COBOL.
Don’t forget this small sector called government. Loads of Cobol there.
I attribute Java’s uptake to a large amount of marketing and support, which led to a massive ecosystem. Even a mediocre language like this one can find success when propped up like that.
I am going to be decapitated for this, but you’re totally right.
You only have to look at Rust. An horrible language with a massive hype machine and an army of zealots pushing it everywhere.
I can’t understand how people are complaining about the java boiler plate and its verbosity, while promoting Rust every time they can.
OOP was hype during the 90s. Schools adapted their curriculum to this trend. So they needed a programming language for this, and Java became the choice. C++ is too tricky as a first language.
The result is that a lot of people knew Java, which means it’s a good choice of language if you want to recruit programmers.
I believe most of Java’s success was luck. It released at the perfect time.
OOP makes so much sense. What happened?
The AbstractionBubbleFactory popped
AbstractionBubbleBuilderFactoryStrategyImplementation mind you
