[mashpoe]

> It lets a lot of innovation happen in other languages, then takes the successful parts for itself

The only time I've ever had to use Java was for a computer science class, and I thought it was a solid language (pun intended), but I hated its half-assed attempt at operator overloading.

I think it's a major feature that's long overdue to be fully implemented in Java, because it's already used for some of Java's built-in classes and it's proven useful in many other programming languages.

Most of Java seems very well-thought-out to me, but for some reason they decided to add only some operator overloading, instead of planning ahead more.

I remember hearing somewhere that they were planning on adding operator overloading, but last I checked it didn't look like it was going anywhere.

[PaulHoule]

Java chose not to implement (general) operator overloading because it's really hard to do right. We're left with just a fluent syntax for appending text to strings.

Java was one of the first language specifications to be written by adults (maybe Common Lisp was the first, but it drives Common Lisp fans crazy to compare Common Lisp to Java, Python, etc.)

Python's operator overloading works remarkably well given that it has a very simple model (always look to the left hand side to decide how to interpret the operator.) C++ on the other hand ought to make anybody skeptical of the idea, but C++ would make anybody thoughtful and sensitive question the idea of computers entirely.

[Someone]

> Java was one of the first language specifications to be written by adults (maybe Common Lisp was the first, but it drives Common Lisp fans crazy to compare Common Lisp to Java, Python, etc.)

I think ALGOL was first, in the ALGOL 60 Report (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ALGOL_60#History). COBOL may have had a good spec around that time, too.

There were older languages with specifications, but those specifications were looser, with languages partly defined by their prime implementation.

[nradov]

The lack of operator overloading makes it impossible to implement new numeric types in a consistent way. For example imaginary numbers or numbers with units.

[hiptobecubic]

If there's no implementation on the left, python then looks on the right.

[DerArzt]

If you are serious about using the JVM, I would suggest Kotlin or Scala as a better alternative to Java as they have all the libraries and greatness of the JVM but they have less of the historical baggage that Java brings with it.

Both can be written in a Java like fashion to start, and have 100% interop with Java (you can mix the languages in projects) so the learning curve is pretty alright.

[PaulHoule]

That is the frying pan to the fire.

JDK 17 has most of the good features of Scala and Kotlin.

Scala seems to be designed so that you can write a short book with very fluent and natural looking demos. Make a small deviation from that and there is nothing fluent or natural about it.

Kotlin is OK but isn't sufficiently better than Java to be worth using when any Kotlin dev is going to have to know Java and Java-Kotlin mapping pretty well to use libraries. (It's a similar problem to Typescript.)

Both Scala and Kotlin are sufficiently similiar to Java to provide no real benefit. I'd point to Clojure as a language that is radically different from Java AND that takes advantage of the strengths of the JVM to be worth the cognitive load of having to know both a new and old language to be productive.

[vips7L]

Scala has just as much historical baggage imo. It's community is split between functional zealots and "better java". You also have the Scala 2/3 split that is currently going on and just the general complexity of the language makes it not so appealing.

IMO if you're serious about using the JVM you should be using Java 17 and following the latest version. Kotlin is usable, but it doesn't bring that much more to that table other than longer compile times.

[darksaints]

They may have a little less of the historical baggage, but that's still a lot of baggage. Same goes for F#. It's a shame that three of the best programming languages in existence are built on top of Java and C#, instead of doing their own thing. Admittedly their VMs are mostly fantastic, but trying to reuse libraries and language constructs has just created more problems.

[pulse7]

Some say "historical baggage", others say "backwards compatibility"... two sides of the same coin...