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Jul 29

The Java Hacker Nonsense

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Paul Graham had an OSCON keynote and people are all riled up about “There are no Java Hackers”.

Mark Watson has got it spot on:

Sure, with Java you give up late binding, continuations, etc. However, the awesome and free tools like Tomcat, Prevayler, SOAP/XML-RPC/REST libraries, incredible development tools like IntelliJ, etc. make using Java a slam dunk for some types of projects.

Popularity in a programming language can be a good thing, and Java definitely has popularity.

I have always respected people’s choice in programming languages and tools. Unlike a lot of people on Slashdot, I think that knocking someone’s choice in programming language is as silly as dissing on their politics, choice of mates, or religion.

Diversity is what makes the world interesting.

Java is a great language, is very useful, has many great developers and minds, and is pushing things in many areas (AOP, TDD, etc).

However, there are many other great languages and environments. One of the more exciting aspects of Java is that fact that it is a platform. There is the JVM, and there are APIs. These have nothing to do with the language itself.

So, if I don’t need a static experience, I can write that piece of code in Groovy/Jython/JRuby/insert your favourite here.

Learning a new language syntax is easy. What is normally hard is groking all of the libraries. Now, we know a lot of Java libraries so we can get up and running fast!

2 Responses to “The Java Hacker Nonsense”

  1. Christian Murphy Says:

    Humph. Paul Graham has his own prejudices that aren’t too well concealed. Does he think James Gosling rates as a great hacker because Java saved the world from C++? Nah, it’s probably because because of his background as a Lisp and Emacs hacker.

  2. Emily - hacker tools Says:

    Java is a popular language being used in many areas, the hackers have to stop hacking java. As they are hacking the network,so many sites, PC its not enough for them. silly guys.

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