C# still doesn't deliver on all platforms where there is a JVM available, and has yet to even offer something as portable as Swing across all those platforms.
Kotlin really only matters on Android.
In fact right now we are having issues with .NET RFPs, because everything that comes through the door are Java related RFPs.
Not really - Java designers were just plain wrong and it took forever to admit it - things like local type inference (var) made the language pointlessly verbose for ages, and simple features like lambdas made the standard libraries terrible.
There was a 8 year gap where C# users could use stuff like enumerable operators while Java users were stuck in the stone age of writing loops for collection manipulation in a high level language ...
Swing is a horror show from both a developer and an end-user perspective, don't know why you would even mention that. Windows desktop apps based on Forms or WPF are in another league both in terms of ease of development and user experience.
So C# definitely benefited with the second mover advantage. It learned a bunch of lessons from Java such as:
- No checked exceptions
- Properties (I wish Java would add this to the core language instead of relying on things like Lombok as it shouldn't change the IR and really is just syntactic sugar)
- Partial classes. This really isn't in contrast to Java because Java has nothing like it. But it is a neat feature for partial code generation;
- LINQ. Java eventually added streams but last I checked it still had performance issues and IMHO LINQ is just cleaner;
- Conditional compilation. This is really a huge oversight. One of the huge benefits of the preprocessor in C/C++ was conditional compilation. It's great than C# included it. It's bizarre to me that Java hasn't.
- Async/await. Honestly I still find C#'s version of this more awkward than Hack's. Experience has taught me that whenever you spawn a thread, you've probably made a mistake as subtle mutlithreading bugs are the devil and cooperative multitasking like you have in Go, C# and Hack is usually far safer and sufficient most of the time. Still, C# is still better than Java here.
- C#'s reified generics vs Java's type erasure. I think it was the right decision to break backwards compatibility here (and I don't usually say this). This was pretty early too (IIRC generics were added in C# 2.0).
But all that being said, I still think Java has a large mindshare and install base than C# by a mile. it's not sexy so it gets less attention on HN but Java is still massive.
As for Kotlin? Much like Scala I see this as nothing more than a curiosity. Android developers seem to like it but I think it's a tiny fraction of Java still.
“One of the huge benefits of the preprocessor in C/C++ was conditional compilation. It's great than C# included it. It's bizarre to me that Java hasn't.”
The C preprocessor can make it way to easy to break code, for example when it is used for feature flags and/or multi-platform support. If you have N feature flags, you have to compile 2^N different programs. Multiply by M for supporting M platforms.
It also makes it impossible to check whether source code can be compiled. The text inside a
#ifdef FOO
...
#endif
block doesn’t have to be valid source code, but the compiler cannot know whether it has to be.
I think that’s why Java ditched it, and I think that makes sense. Adding a more limited feature, like C# did, makes sense, too, though. I’m not sure C#’s variant is limited enough, though. it still is subject to that 2^N problem, but gets saved from its main problems because C# isn’t running on as diverse environments as where lots of C code evolved.
LINQ is cleaner, but I find streams to be more elegant when considering the language as a whole (its just a pure library - no new syntax/rules/etc to learn).
I feel like a lot of languages these days trend towards "kitchen sink" languages that toss in everything and the kitchen sink in the name of clean looking code. IMHO this tends to sacrifice language elegance. This is probably why I tend to like languages like Java/Go/Clojure.
> As for Kotlin? Much like Scala I see this as nothing more than a curiosity. Android developers seem to like it but I think it's a tiny fraction of Java still.
Java is massive for legacy reasons, but would be nice to have some statistics regarding new projects. The last two companies I've worked for had backend teams using Kotlin so I've been assuming this is also preferred by backend people. Could well be that this has was an anomaly though.
I mostly develop for Android so my own perception is obviously biased, as Java is pretty thoroughly erased from this world now.
If we look at programming languages as tools, it makes sense for them to get out of date and new ones taking their place, with all the lessons learned.
So its possible that programming languages like C++ that keeps extending their own life through adding features (while keeping weaknesses), will ultimately cost the community/industry more in the long run.
I'm not saying Java should have introduced ground breaking features - I'm saying they made design mistakes that they should have corrected far sooner (var/type inference) and refused to add some basic features (lambdas) that would have made the code a lot better for it.
They did add those features eventually (Java 8) - about 8 years behind C# (since C# 3.0)
>If we look at programming languages as tools, it makes sense for them to get out of date and new ones taking their place, with all the lessons learned.
Part of me thinks that this is how it should be. Extending a language constantly while providing backwards compatibility can lead to some awkward syntax too.
It seems to me that for many developers, all they want from a language is more and more features. I’m grateful for languages like Go and Lua that try to buck this trend.
Oracle is all the hate, but when it comes to java, Oracle really got the show rolling again. Prior to Oracle, little happened. After Oracle, a lot is happening.
People put scare quotes in seemingly at random these days - are you suggesting it's possibly not their strategy and actually they're lying? What do these scare quotes mean?
pjmlp|5 years ago
C# still doesn't deliver on all platforms where there is a JVM available, and has yet to even offer something as portable as Swing across all those platforms.
Kotlin really only matters on Android.
In fact right now we are having issues with .NET RFPs, because everything that comes through the door are Java related RFPs.
rubber_duck|5 years ago
There was a 8 year gap where C# users could use stuff like enumerable operators while Java users were stuck in the stone age of writing loops for collection manipulation in a high level language ...
codebolt|5 years ago
cletus|5 years ago
- No checked exceptions
- Properties (I wish Java would add this to the core language instead of relying on things like Lombok as it shouldn't change the IR and really is just syntactic sugar)
- Partial classes. This really isn't in contrast to Java because Java has nothing like it. But it is a neat feature for partial code generation;
- LINQ. Java eventually added streams but last I checked it still had performance issues and IMHO LINQ is just cleaner;
- Conditional compilation. This is really a huge oversight. One of the huge benefits of the preprocessor in C/C++ was conditional compilation. It's great than C# included it. It's bizarre to me that Java hasn't.
- Async/await. Honestly I still find C#'s version of this more awkward than Hack's. Experience has taught me that whenever you spawn a thread, you've probably made a mistake as subtle mutlithreading bugs are the devil and cooperative multitasking like you have in Go, C# and Hack is usually far safer and sufficient most of the time. Still, C# is still better than Java here.
- C#'s reified generics vs Java's type erasure. I think it was the right decision to break backwards compatibility here (and I don't usually say this). This was pretty early too (IIRC generics were added in C# 2.0).
But all that being said, I still think Java has a large mindshare and install base than C# by a mile. it's not sexy so it gets less attention on HN but Java is still massive.
As for Kotlin? Much like Scala I see this as nothing more than a curiosity. Android developers seem to like it but I think it's a tiny fraction of Java still.
Someone|5 years ago
The C preprocessor can make it way to easy to break code, for example when it is used for feature flags and/or multi-platform support. If you have N feature flags, you have to compile 2^N different programs. Multiply by M for supporting M platforms.
It also makes it impossible to check whether source code can be compiled. The text inside a
block doesn’t have to be valid source code, but the compiler cannot know whether it has to be. I think that’s why Java ditched it, and I think that makes sense. Adding a more limited feature, like C# did, makes sense, too, though. I’m not sure C#’s variant is limited enough, though. it still is subject to that 2^N problem, but gets saved from its main problems because C# isn’t running on as diverse environments as where lots of C code evolved.bcrosby95|5 years ago
I feel like a lot of languages these days trend towards "kitchen sink" languages that toss in everything and the kitchen sink in the name of clean looking code. IMHO this tends to sacrifice language elegance. This is probably why I tend to like languages like Java/Go/Clojure.
distances|5 years ago
Java is massive for legacy reasons, but would be nice to have some statistics regarding new projects. The last two companies I've worked for had backend teams using Kotlin so I've been assuming this is also preferred by backend people. Could well be that this has was an anomaly though.
I mostly develop for Android so my own perception is obviously biased, as Java is pretty thoroughly erased from this world now.
vips7L|5 years ago
See virtual threads vs async/await. Java's version is going to be better.
unknown|5 years ago
[deleted]
pjmlp|5 years ago
I rely miss checked exceptions on .NET, specially with libraries that provide zero documentation about their exceptions.
hackingthenews|5 years ago
If we look at programming languages as tools, it makes sense for them to get out of date and new ones taking their place, with all the lessons learned.
So its possible that programming languages like C++ that keeps extending their own life through adding features (while keeping weaknesses), will ultimately cost the community/industry more in the long run.
rubber_duck|5 years ago
They did add those features eventually (Java 8) - about 8 years behind C# (since C# 3.0)
Aerroon|5 years ago
Part of me thinks that this is how it should be. Extending a language constantly while providing backwards compatibility can lead to some awkward syntax too.
pansa2|5 years ago
pjmlp|5 years ago
unknown|5 years ago
[deleted]
GordonS|5 years ago
But of course, I'm sure Oracle is a big reason too.
elygre|5 years ago
chrisseaton|5 years ago
People put scare quotes in seemingly at random these days - are you suggesting it's possibly not their strategy and actually they're lying? What do these scare quotes mean?
moron4hire|5 years ago