Back to Java

September 29, 2010

So I’m coding in Java again for the first time since 2003. I do prefer C++ or Python, and I’ve always – tongue in cheek – slated Java as the Cobol of the 21st century. But Eclipse is nice, so’s Maven, and generics are good too. BigDecimal sucks. But it does make me feel like I’m cycling with training wheels on…

Posted in career, coding | 3 Comments »

3 Responses to “Back to Java”

  1. Sean Hunter's avatar Sean Hunter Says:

    September 29, 2010 at 1:14 pm

    Have you tried scala? It’s a sort of less-sucky version of java with some functional characteristics.

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  2. alexei's avatar alexei Says:

    September 29, 2010 at 4:04 pm

    Although I have vastly more experience with C++, I do find that I am more productive using Java (the language, the libraries and Eclipse all contribute to that.)

    The language obviously has its share of gremlins. To give one example, the lack of operator overloading is incredibly annoying for anyone who does scientific programming in Java.

    All in all, I am finding it a rather pleasant experience despite the shortcomings.

    Oh, and Jython bridges Java and Python beautifully.

    Reply
  3. John's avatar John Says:

    September 29, 2010 at 4:11 pm

    Java is denigrated by many but the cross platform nature (c.f. to .NET and C++/C), the outstanding tools support (Eclipse, Netbeans, Intellij), Findbugs, PMD, Spring, Hibernate, log4j etc leave a lot of competitors in the shade.

    Sure Scala is nice but do you want run of the mill developers coding in it? Java allows you to ramp up a team with good developers in a short space of time. We now mix it with a lot of Groovy for increased productivity.

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