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How Java Changed Programming Forever
snydeq writes: With Java hitting its 20th anniversary this week, Elliotte Rusty Harold discusses how the language changed the art and business of programming, turning on a generation of coders. Infoworld reports: "Java's core strength was that it was built to be a practical tool for getting work done. It popularized good ideas from earlier languages by repackaging them in a format that was familiar to the average C coder, though (unlike C++ and Objective-C) Java was not a strict superset of C. Indeed it was precisely this willingness to not only add but also remove features that made Java so much simpler and easier to learn than other object-oriented C descendants."
I don't have any philosophical issues with Java, but the "simplicity" of it has led to software vendors thinking they can hire simple people to write mission-critical software, with terrible results.
At work, we have several pieces of server software written in Java, and they are just awful. The RSA server, an auth server from Cisco, and others. They crash when the wind blows the wrong way. They bloat and need to be restarted every few months. One executable starts multiple network services on multiple ports. They rely on using dozens of threads with dozens of queues, and there is no way to inspect them. Logs show high volumes of Java call traces and error messages, even when the software is running fine. Sometimes components just stop working, we call the vendor, and the vendor instructs us to restart and/or reboot.
With the RSA server, we had a massive outage one time because an admin kicked off a few reports. It turns out the reports hung a few threads, and took down the service for the whole enterprise.
The Cisco server has the same problems: dozens (hundreds?) of threads with dozens of queues, and the synchronization among the threads just doesn't work 10-20% of the time.
It's not just these servers. In a previous role, we had some Java middleware that translated DIAMETER RADIUS in a service provider setting, and that was it. That software blew up every month or two, and we had to fail the service open for all our customers.
Terrible, flaky, unreliable software. Again, I think it's probably not the language, it's the shitty, shitty programmers.
But, hey, it's job security for me!
>> Because Chrome is turning Java off and they're trying to make sure other browsers don't follow suit.
>> Seriously, I see no NEED for Java any more. I probably have more Silverlight things I like to use than I do Java, and neither are vital any more.
It must so wonderfull to live in a world limited by your browser window. Wonder how it's like. Have you ever wondered what do the servers run? You know, the same servers that show you all sorts of pages? Banks, Twitter, Amazon, eBay, LinkedIn hundreds of other high load sites and countless numbers of proprietary in-house internal systems? Let me give you a hint: definitely not silverlight.
>> Java is dead
You need to grab a phone at tell all those sites above I mentioned, also, while you're at it, don't forget IBM and Oracle, they'll have a blast.
Java != Java applets.
Java is certainly not dead. If you're a software engineer, my gut feeling is that 70% of job offers involve Java programming. Java is widespread in the enterprise as well as open source frameworks and platforms.
But parent is right in the fact that Java in the browser is practically dead. Some office environments still require Java for entperise applications, but practically all ordinary users don't need Java in the browser.
It's a little ironic, since Java on the web was one of Java's main, original use cases. Now Java applets are niche and fading out, whereas Java is pretty much rampant everywhere else.