Is java dieing its death?

[TheAnimus]

Neglecting existing systems, who is actually still writing Java?

Also, excluding Andriod, as they painfuly try to show, its *not* Java.

It's had so many serious security issues, people worry Oracle are not taking it seriously.

It's already lost its fruity endorsment on overpriced laptops, now we see people slamming it, quite rightly so for behaviour like:
http://www.zdnet.com/a-close-look-at...es-7000010038/

Are we now watching the death of Java? It had long superast its hype cycle.

Are people actively writing new stuff that relies on Java?

[d032sh]

I can't believe many people write desktop apps in Java anymore, it was always a pretty weird choice of a language for that anyway. Applets have completely died a death, and not a minute too soon I would say.... I certainly don't see things like JavaFX or Groovy taking off for normal mass market web sites either.

However, I write Java most days... there's a huge amount of new and existing business software written using Java and I can't see that changing anytime soon. I get annoyed about the lack of progress of the language and the constant delays and dropping of features in new versions but that's the nature of things with such a design-by-committee approach to a language which really doesn't need additional features. I can look at things like reified generics and lambdas/linq in .Net and feel a bit sad that Java doesn't have them, but I don't see it as a deal-breaker and if you're using any systems but Windows then .Net isn't really an option.

Should the JRE continue to be installed on desktop PCs - nope.

Will people still be writing Java from scratch in 20 years - yep.

[chuckskull]

I ditched it a while back. Too vulnerable, not to mention the bloat it tried to install and tbh in the last few months since then I've come across a grand total of one website that missed it. Pingtest for their packet loss do dad. Not one other gave me a "Please install Java" message. I think unless oracle gets it's rear in gear over security, first and foremost, then there are other languages and techs that are mature enough to take it's place easily and they will.

[pp05]

On the desktop I generally have not required it other than for some IM service. Other than that it is a security problem as last few malware that popped up were looked like they were Java based.

When I posed this question to someone they said Java is fine, it is Windows that is shoddy.

[Funkstar]

Is Java dead?

I bloody hope so on the desktop. This thread has prompted me to in-install the client on my laptop. the updater annoys the hell out of me.

[scaryjim]

I think there's still a few F2P games that use it - I'm pretty sure that Drakensang Online is java-based. And as someone above has already said, lots of big financial institutions have corporate software written in java. But whether it has a long term future is debatable. With MS pushing people towards RT and light-weight app development in .NET/HTML5, there's going to be less and less interest in using it for casual purposes, and I guess once those toolsets are mature (and lets be honest, they're not bad now) I can see the big financials jumping on Win RT as a cheaper way to roll out corporate hardware (since it's ARM compatible it could be run on very lightweight clients) - after all, there'll be plenty of Win RT developers who are every bit as good as the Java monkeys they're currently using...

[jimbouk]

Eclipse...?

[TheAnimus]

Eclipse...?

I don't know any good Java dev who uses eclipse at the momenet. Everyone appears to love on IntelliJ.

I mean, just look at the eclipse website, its terrible. More banner adds about stuff than content, the download button looks like a fake one you find on a dodgy website....

[directhex]

I don't know any good Java dev who uses eclipse at the momenet. Everyone appears to love on IntelliJ.

I mean, just look at the eclipse website, its terrible. More banner adds about stuff than content, the download button looks like a fake one you find on a dodgy website....

Apparently Eclipse is super popular for embedded hardware development, as it's light years ahead of the competition.

Which is terrifying, as Eclipse is the main reason I dumped Java as unfit for porpoise.

[b0redom]

There are a significant number of tools based on Eclipse though, for example all of IBMs Rational toolset was when I last used it. Although the experience was pretty hideous.

On the desktop, JAVA is pretty much dead. On the server, it'll be around for a long time to come. There are oodles of JAVA enterprise apps which won't die for years to come. Atlassian make a bunch of them, in addition to in house written stuff.

[d032sh]

all of IBMs Rational toolset

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well that was a waste of years of therapy.

Thanks

[crossy]

I can't believe many people write desktop apps in Java anymore, it was always a pretty weird choice of a language for that anyway. Applets have completely died a death, and not a minute too soon I would say.

I can look at things like reified generics and lambdas/linq in .Net and feel a bit sad that Java doesn't have them, but I don't see it as a deal-breaker and if you're using any systems but Windows then .Net isn't really an option.

I'm still seeing desktop apps in Java - there's a sysadmin client that I use that uses it. Slow to start and eats resources like a coach load of Americans! I'm not sure whether the B-Folders password store also uses Java. As to the death of applets, like you say, good riddance! Maybe the latter was finally killed off by the proliferation of script blockers like ABP?

Funny you should say that about .Net. Last year I was looking for a new language to try, and flirted with Java and .Net/C#. I came away quite impressed with the latter - especially as the Mono implementation seemed to be quite usable.

Small, but possible contentious statement, can some of the issues with Java be laid at the door of Oracle? Sure there were complaints about Java when it was a Sun project, but it seems to me that the severity of the complaints has got bigger since Oracle took the reins. Maybe the best idea would be some sort of community control of the language where Oracle was just another user.

Meanwhile I'm quite happy with my combo of C/Perl/Python and ksh. "C" a language for the amnesiac - poor memory management!

[d032sh]

Small, but possible contentious statement, can some of the issues with Java be laid at the door of Oracle? Sure there were complaints about Java when it was a Sun project, but it seems to me that the severity of the complaints has got bigger since Oracle took the reins. Maybe the best idea would be some sort of community control of the language where Oracle was just another use

Well Oracle were definitely responsible for most of the massive delays to Java 7, I remember reading one of their public statements about how all the 'integration' of Sun took longer than expected.

In reality though I think the JCP is part of the problem... I like some and hate some of the changes Microsoft have made to C# since it came out but they have never had the problem of having to pre-publish every proposed specification, have people vote on it, make changes until enough people agree, then go back to the start when they don't etc. In Java-land you see lots of that, specification leads giving up and going to do something else and not being replaced... there are dead JSRs all over the place. Microsoft at least have the ability to just develop and release changes and then suffer any backlash later if people don't like them.

I may get flamed for this, but I do think that part of the problem is that as languages both C# and Java are really sufficiently mature... there's not *that* much in the way of new functionality that the majority of their respective user bases want.

[TheAnimus]

I may get flamed for this, but I do think that part of the problem is that as languages both C# and Java are really sufficiently mature... there's not *that* much in the way of new functionality that the majority of their respective user bases want.

Bulls dangly bits.

If you want a list of things java is missing, use C#, then use Java. When Generics, which are still been enhanced in .Net 8 years on, are still just templates in java, they've a lot of catching up to do. That's before we start talking about covariance and contravariance. There are still plenty more things C# people want from their generics too mind.

We've got the async/await pattern which has just arrived in C#. It is however, no subsitute for a proper concieved actor model paradigm such as that of erlang.

This is the thing, back 8 years ago (before .Net 2) Java had a richness of libraries for things. IoC/DI which had never been heard of in .Net stack was common pratice (well, comparatively, still only about 5% of devs use it, but 90% of devs are useless anyway).

Fast forward to today, and language features have come in to C# and F# to allow these ideas to flow naturally, expressed with minimal effort and not having noise in the way. Java has stood still.

I bet someone said "oh but there is JAct or whatever for actor model in Java", well its ****, utter noisey ****. I would just use erlang rather than that delegate mess!

That is why c# isn't feeling old when you write it. Because ultimately half of what say a modern UI would be written in is Rx(monads),WPF(declarative),Async/Await,iterator.

[crossy]

Fast forward to today, and language features have come in to C# and F# to allow these ideas to flow naturally, expressed with minimal effort and not having noise in the way. Java has stood still.

That is why c# isn't feeling old when you write it. Because ultimately half of what say a modern UI would be written in is Rx(monads),WPF(declarative),Async/Await,iterator.

From my beginners perspective in both I've got to wholeheartedly agree - from what I could see from the literature most of what I wanted to do would be easy in C#, but require quite a lot of programming workarounds in Java. Even worse when you consider that my platform of choice is Linux, not Windows (so that's the Mono version of C#, and Moonlight to make up for the lack of WPF on Linux))

And therein lies a major threat to Java - if it's perceived as being difficult/complex/specialised then aspiring programmers are going to skip it. Although perhaps that explains the barrage of recruiters looking desperately for Java "barristas".

PS TheAnimus - most of the technical content of your post went so far over my head that I'd need the bl**dy Hubble telescope to see it. Thanks for making me feel dumber than a stone (or backbench MP). Looks like I've got a lot of reading up to do...

[d032sh]

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