Java Is Criminally Underhyped

• scala

  45 14,271 9.8 Scala

  Scala 2 compiler and standard library. Bugs at https://github.com/scala/bug; Scala 3 at https://github.com/scala/scala3

  

- Scala: https://www.scala-lang.org/

Java just doesn't have the cool factor that other languages have. A little rebranding could go a long way to reinvigorating the language in the eyes of newcomers. And I say that because the author of this blog post is a newcomer. Experiened developers know that, despite the ugly Oracle branding, Java is a good language with a sophisticated ecosystem of tools surrounding it. He seems to be mostly enamored with the developer experience of IntelliJ + Java + Maven. And while it is great, that experience is possible with most programming languages.

Disclaimer: I haven't used Java since my early University classes 10+ years ago.

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• vscode-java

  35 2,037 9.0 TypeScript

  Java Language Support for Visual Studio Code

  

Yeah right; after almost 2 years the standard formatter still occasionally deletes code. [1]

[1]: https://github.com/redhat-developer/vscode-java/issues/1132

• 0bin

  25 1,351 1.8 JavaScript

  Client side encrypted pastebin

  

I came to say say that's not a language problem, that's a packaging problem. But that would be misleading.

The reason packaging is still a problem in Python are linked to the language:

- to get perfs, you need compiled extensions, which java doesn't need. So a Jar can be fast and portable, while in Python it's an "or" proposition. Wheels help, but they still are OS dependent, so you need a build per OS.

- PYZ arrived very late in Python, while WAR were a very early thing in Java. Few people even know you can distribute a whole Python program in a single zip file with dependencies using something like shiv (shiv.readthedocs.io). So few people do it, and it's a shame. We do it for 0bin though: https://github.com/Tygs/0bin/releases. And it doesn't solve the wheel problem, although nuitka does but it a higher prices to pay.

- packaging tooling have been a mess for 2 decades. Setuptools/distutils/setuptools2, easy_install/pip, and setup.cfg/setup.py/pyproject.toml. We failed as a community on this one. It's getting better, but it's a slow process.

- the Python community is at least half composed of amateurs. It's a good thing for the dynamism of the community, but it also means the software are not very polished. Hard packaging + amateurs = packages that are releases when they reach "just good enough" stage, not one inch more. It also means you'll get things like leaking stack traces, config files in src and the likes.

• Maven Wrapper

  5 1,568 2.1 Java

  Discontinued The easiest way to integrate Maven into your project!

  

IDE's can be fiddly, and anyway I don't think it's good to depend on an IDE for building.

The project could have been set up instead with the "Maven wrapper"(1) which provides "mvn.cmd/sh" scripts at the top level of the project to fetch and run the proper Maven. So after cloning the project, all you have to do is set a proper JAVA_HOME and then do "./mvn clean package". The IDE's will then set themselves up properly if you import the project as a Maven project, and will sync with changes to the Maven pom.xml whenever it changes (Intellij does at least). That's really hard to beat.

(1) https://github.com/takari/maven-wrapper (Being integrated into Maven itself soon).

• FizzBuzz Enterprise Edition

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I've never heard someone with experience in npm say they love maven. Interesting. Regardless, I actually agree Java is a fine language. I'm still surprisingly productive in it despite 10 years of time away.

However, it's the culture around Java that I hate, and that's the reason I avoid Java. The amount of low quality Java code out there is staggering. The culture around Java is one of extreme levels of abstraction and encapsulation, and it makes reasoning about Java code really painful some times. If you have worked in a Java shop, check out the Enterprise edition of FizzBuzz: https://github.com/EnterpriseQualityCoding/FizzBuzzEnterpris...

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• Airflow

  169 34,397 10.0 Python

  Apache Airflow - A platform to programmatically author, schedule, and monitor workflows

  

That's really not true.

I like to point out Airflow as an example. It's still a complete nightmare to deal with and it has many steps for just packaging the application.

https://github.com/apache/airflow

I have less trouble packaging and running a 3 year unmaintained Maven Java application, than actively maintained Airflow. And let's not forget that I can target Java 8, without having to install Java 8 on my machine. (Which only adds to Python's complexity)

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