what kinds of JVM issues did you run into in deployment? for personal projects I have always used C++, Python, RoR, MEAN, etc. but at work where my role is non-dev, our software dev team likes Java and the heavy weighted GWT... frankly shutting me out. I'd love to know how to convince them to switch out of Java.
Memory issues out the ass. Which are obviously all in my head because there are no memory leaks in Java. I must be doing it wrong. Am I sure I know how to multiply? Of course you shouldn't be using version 1.2.3.4.5, our code only works with 1.2.3.4.4, everybody knows that. Well, except for that code, which of course you have to run on 1.2.3.4.4c. And this third-party daemon over here, that only runs on an obscure 6-year-old JVM and you have to put it in /var/deadchicken/ and insert three squirrels before executing.
You won't convince them, they've already jumped off the cliff. It's all perfectly normal to them. If you want to do development, find a company that hasn't been contaminated yet.
As others have posted, this is indicative of bad code. Java can certainly leak memory in the form of retained live references.
> Of course you shouldn't be using version 1.2.3.4.5, our code only works with 1.2.3.4.4, everybody knows that.
That's completely independent of the language or runtime being used, and is purely a project management issue (which breaking changes go into which version).
> that only runs on an obscure 6-year-old JVM
If there is code that imports classes specific to a JVM (com.sun, etc), then that code is doing something pretty much universally agreed on in the Java community to be a 'bad thing'. Otherwise, bytecode from Java 1.0 still runs on the latest JVM without issue.
You can use any language or runtime badly. There is a lot of code out there written in Java, and a lot of 'commodity' Java developers writing it. Of course there is going to be a greater volume of bad code, that's not an indictment of the platform itself.
> That's completely independent of the language or runtime being used, and is purely a project management issue (which breaking changes go into which version).
That passage was about the runtime. At one point, I had to deal with four different JVMs in the same server farm.
> You can use any language or runtime badly.
No other ecosystem has so consistently fucked me over. Not even PHP. I actually prefer Java to PHP for just writing code, but PHP to absolutely anything running on the JVM for operations.
Know when I stopped regularly getting woken up in the middle of the night? 2011, when I stopped supporting anything on a JVM. Ironically, it would have been two years earlier, but I foolishly self-inflicted Cassandra on myself. Never again.
But it sounds like your problem isn't Java/JVM, but rather really shitty code. If it breaks when you change minor versions of the JVM, the code is broken.
Just from my own personal experience, you've just indicted code from three well-known SV companies, at least two more non-SV fortune-500s, a mess of B2B vendors, the Apache foundation, and a few minor, independent open-source projects. I've heard stories from friends in a few other companies about both internal and third-party code.
At some point you reach the conclusion that the problem with an ecosystem is more fundamental than a few lazy developers. But even if not, your statement isn't actionable. If all the code in a certain set happens to be really shitty, the only rational choice is to not use that code. Any other argument ends up being one only of semantics.
You'll have all seen the pattern. The sort of people who use language X tend to be the same people who use VCS Y tend to be the same people who think doing Z is a good idea tend to be the same people who don't see any problem with IDE W and protocol V.
Culture (by definition) is something that propagates amongst a community, and sometimes it's just poisonous. Or at least seems poisonous from an outsider's point of view. Except if it's java, in which case there's no two ways about it.
I think I've deployed only one java web app (puppet-db) that doesn't have huge memory leak issues. With the lack of process recycling in tomcat to mitigate "bad code", I cringe every time I have to deploy another one.
I have two responses to that, which may seem contradictory but are both heartfelt:
1) Your company uses Maven? You're lucky!
2) Maven? The prosecution rests.
> Please educate me, what am I missing out on?
You're happy. I'm obviously just another annoying, delusional ops guy who doesn't know what he's talking about. Why would you think you're missing out on anything? Go about your business. Everything is just fine.
Don't be so bitter. Your post above was informative to me, and it's telling that you alluded to the community blaming ops troubles on "bad code", and the two people who replied to you did just that.
