If Java Is Dying, It Sure Looks Awfully Healthy

Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Andrew Binstock writes at Dr. Dobb's that a recurring prejudice in the forums where the cool kids hang out is against Java, often described as verbose and fading in popularity but Binstock sees little supporting evidence of Java being in some kind of long-term decline. While it is true that Java certainly can be verbose, several scripting languages have sprung up which are purpose-designed to spare developers from long syntactical passages to communicate a simple action, including NetRexx, Groovy, and Scala. As far as Java's popularity goes, normally, when technologies start their ultimate decline, tradeshows are the first to reflect the disintegrating community. But the recent JavaOne show was clearly larger and better attended than it has been in either of the last two years and vendors on the exhibiting floor were unanimous in saying that traffic, leads, and inquiries were up significantly over last year. Technically, the language continues to advance says Binstock. Java 8, expected in March, will add closures (that is, lambda expressions) that will reduce code, diminish the need for anonymous inner classes, and facilitate functional-like coding. Greater modularity which will be complete in Java 9 (due in 2016) will help efficient management of artifacts, as will several enhancements that simplify syntax in that release. 'When you add in the Android ecosystem, whose native development language is Java, it becomes very difficult to see how a language so widely used in so many areas — server, Web, desktop, mobile devices — is in some kind of decline,' concludes Binstock. 'What I'm seeing is a language that is under constant refinement and development, with a large and very active community, which enjoys a platform that is widely used for new languages. None of this looks to me like a language in decline.'"

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The story, as visualized in Python

[idontgno]

The Dead Collector: Bring out yer dead.
[a company puts COBOL on the cart]
Oracle Corporation with Dead Body: Here's one.
The Dead Collector: That'll be ninepence.
Java: I'm not dead.
The Dead Collector: What?
Oracle: Nothing. There's your ninepence.
Java: I'm not dead.
The Dead Collector: 'Ere, he says he's not dead.
Oracle: Yes he is.
Java: I'm not.
The Dead Collector: He isn't.
Oracle: Well, he will be soon, he's very ill.
Java: I'm getting better.
Oracle: No you're not, you'll be stone dead in a moment.
The Dead Collector: Well, I can't take him like that. It's against regulations.
Java: I don't want to go on the cart.
Oracle: Oh, don't be such a baby.
The Dead Collector: I can't take him.
Java: I feel fine.
Oracle: Oh, do me a favor.
The Dead Collector: I can't.
Oracle: Well, can you hang around for a couple of minutes? He won't be long.
The Dead Collector: I promised I'd be at Microsoft. They've lost nine today.
Oracle: Well, when's your next round?
The Dead Collector: Thursday.
Java: I think I'll go for a walk.
Oracle: You're not fooling anyone, you know. Isn't there anything you could do?
Java: I feel happy. I feel happy.
[The Dead Collector glances up and down the street furtively, then silences the Body with his a whack of his club]
Oracle: Ah, thank you very much.
The Dead Collector: Not at all. See you on Thursday.
Oracle: Right.

Re:Java's problem isn't verbosity

[Kagato]

There's certainly a lot of factory pattern stuff out there. But your comparison is a bit outdated. Now days development uses a lot of annotations, auto-wiring/dependency injection. If I need to roll out a web service that makes some DB calls it's not that big of a lift. Maybe a half a dozen classes to get the job done (including tests).