

Ask HN: Is Java Dying? - albert_prada

What do you think the future of the Java Language would be? What's a good replacement? Would the replacement run on the JVM?
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evgen
The JVM is going strong and will stick around as a common platform for a
variety of interesting languages for quite a while. Java the language is on
the downward slope of the hype curve, but still has a huge base of existing
installs so even though it is bleeding it will take a while for shock to set
in. IMHO, the biggest future surprise will be how Java turns out to not be the
COBOL of the future. COBOL is an antediluvian artifact that got the job done
but lingers on in constant maintenance mode until enterprises bite the bullet
and spend capital to do a wholesale replacement of the legacy mainframe
system. The JVM is what will eliminate this refuge and last bastion for Java
the language; the fact that other languages can run on the JVM and interface
with old Java code means that incremental replacement is an option, and that
option will be exercised more and more until the Java language becomes a
distant memory.

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davidw
No, it's not dying. The installed base is _huge_ \- it's currently the most
popular language on <http://langpop.com> . Perhaps, if Oracle messes things up
enough, its rate of adoption for new projects might conceivably slow a bit.

~~~
hga
Indeed, there's no way you could say its _dying_.

That said, Oracle has rolled a grenade into the greater Java ecosystem and
we're waiting to see what happens next. If "Oracle messes things up enough" I
suspect we'll see a lot more than a slow down in new projects, or at least the
sort we're interested in.

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atldev
I've been working with Java since '98. I worked for Sun Micro, then Netscape,
then the Sun-Netscape alliance, then iPlanet. I also worked for Oracle before
I joined Sun and would have lost a lot of money on the wager that Oracle would
buy Sun one day.

Java is not dying. The enterprise footprint alone will sustain the community
(and developers) for years. And there is still plenty of innovation rolling
out (SpringMVC is a good example) and I see some great angles for VMWare.

That said, I finally broke down and started learning Ruby last week (after the
Oracle litigation announcement). All I can say is...wow. In less than a week,
I was pretty comfortable with RoR (OO and MVC felt right at home). Over the
weekend, I built an app that I'm actually proud of and planning to share with
the HN community for feedback this week. The community is friendly and I'm
blown away by the ecosystem (Heroku is ridiculously great).

Bottom-line: I built my home and fed my family with Java over the past decade
and feel almost a sense of loyalty. I thought I was pretty fast in Java, but
my productivity is up in RoR, even with the learning curve. I've loved every
minute and have decided to build subsequent projects using RoR unless I run
into some type of crazy roadblock along the way.

The early adopters that embraced Java and pushed it before it was proven (.97b
anyone?) are the same people that love trying new things now. That other
options are so enjoyable is a bigger threat to Java than Oracle. Oracle might
have just provided the nudge people needed to see for themselves.

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geebee
This discussion often happens around JVM languages or dead-end projects that
will need to be maintained until the end of the universe. If that's all that
remains, then yeah, I'd say Java is dying, because people won't be actively
writing new, interesting code in Java.

A couple of projects that suggest Java may not be dying (quite yet) are Roo
and GWT. Roo is a spring-based framework that is very Rails-esque in terms of
getting a web application up and running very quickly, though I haven't looked
through much of the code. GWT is (as almost everyone knows) a very powerful
framework for creating rich internet applications. It's a really major
departure from page-based technologies.

Aside from that, there are still other projects like Guice, Gin, Struts 2 (and
other MVC frameworks), ORM type work, and so forth (many of which are often
used with GWT and are rolled into Roo).

While I've looked into these, none of them are enough to make me want to make
a switch (back) from Ruby to Java programming. But I do think there's still
enough going on there that I really wouldn't say Java is dying as a language
that people use to build web applications (and I don't mean purely as a JVM or
legacy code thing...) Some of the top innovation is still happening in
Javaland.

~~~
dolphenstein
Theres also grails, but even that is a bit clunky at times. I was ready to
jump ship to Ruby land and then I discovered Play framework
(www.playframework.org). It goes against many Java conventions but thats a
good thing! Development time definitely lot faster! The only downside is that
the community around it isn't quite as big as the other frameworks (hopefully
that will change!).

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beagle3
Not a chance, though I wish it would.

It was born in sin, marketed beyond merit, and has a horrible culture of
bureaucracy and overhead.

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bensummers
We use JRuby with a bit of Java. The JVM is a very interesting place to be,
with relative safety in the language and runtime, C-ish performance, and
access to lots of lovely libraries. And you don't have to program in Java to
use it.

Here's how we went from Ruby to JRuby + Java: <http://bens.me.uk/2010/jruby-
in-practice>

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wolfrom
We're writing our startup using Java and Google App Engine, so we're obviously
stuck in the middle of something. But in the end, we're confident that Java is
giving us the best performance for what we're doing (big data), and no matter
what happens between Oracle and Google, there's still an Open Source
programming language that can't be taken back.

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albert_prada
Yes, that's what I am thinking, with Larry's style of management/acquisition
style, the future is uncertain for us Java Developers

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fbnt
Java is now deeply-rooted in enterprise software, and in this field, once a
project have been developed, radical technology changes occours on a 10-year+
basis. You won't believe how many big businesses still relies on Cobol
development for manteniance. So, imho, Java isn't going away anytime soon.

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colinprince
Some information at:

[http://www.michaelnygard.com/blog/2010/04/the_future_of_soft...](http://www.michaelnygard.com/blog/2010/04/the_future_of_software_develop.html)

"The Future of Software Development"

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jacktang
I had dropped java/j2ee since 2006 and moved to ruby and erlang community. I
hated the deployment of j2ee application and the dependencies of jars, i known
ant/maven would solve the problem somehow, but i enjoy the way ror/otp does

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sandipagr
It stands pretty strong. Lot of enterprise softwares are Java based. Most
schools teach this as their main language. So, at least I don't see it
happening anytime soon.

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Galilyou
Yes! Still there will be a remaining huge code base to be maintained.

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noodle
dying? no. growing? no, not really, either. or, at least, nowhere near the
pace that it had to get to where it is now.

