Bored Mind Is No Coffin Nail

WTF is this blog post about - you might ask yourself?

Well, it's about Java. And it's about how Java is right now in the discussion to be the new COBOL. And it's about a handful of bored minds who wish it would go away to leave the space for the wonderful academic world of LISPs. Oh, wait. Didn't they say, LISP is also dead? No? Does it come back again as Clojure? Hm. And they said, C++ is an old hat, but it's still there, and it's starting into the next round and it looks cool I must say with all its new features. And it has its fans, quite a lot. And it has its place. So, why not?

Now, there is Java. The ultimate enterprise platform of the past decade, beside .NET. Both are responsible for the growth of millions of businesses as IT enablers. Both still drive them. Both will drive them in the future. Both (now) allow multiple languages on the common platform, but the most used are Java and C#. And why? Because they are simple! These languages can be learned within a few hours - concerning their syntax, and then you only learn the rich extended features and libraries and idioms.

But even because they are simple, a sophisticated mind quickly gets bored with them. Sure, it's normal. And of course every good programmer should learn a new language every now and then. But what I can't stand is the campaign against one language or another. And what is really stupid is the daily invention of a programming language. One-man-programming languages. What for? Who does need them? Guys, you better concentrate on improving of the existing ones! If people on Earth would invent spoken languages as often as you do invent programming languages, the planet would become very quiet. It seems to me that these days, instead of finding idioms in one existing programming language to solve a concrete problem you just invent a completely new programming language just for this purpose!

Now to the discussion about Java as dying inferior bashing enterprise language. Well, millions of outsourcing companies will be happy to hear this, and managers don't give sh... to academic beauty of the Clojure code. For example, 30 bucks an hour is a good price, sounds great and much cheaper than what an average Java consultant earns these days. Before another languages will have a chance to come as far as Java is right now - struggling themselves with academic features and discussions around the squaring the circle programmaticly, all the nice jobs are gone to India and East Europe again. Is it really what you all want?..

Even if your mind is bored - don't make the mistake, don't bury Java, don't believe it's gone. You can't compare it with COBOL since it's running completely different paradigmas, scales well for some scenarios, abstracts perfectly and is very open and extremely well supported. And it's simple. It could be simpler, but it's ok. Its only problem is that it's not academic :), and it could scale better if it would have some elements of functional programming so the developer won't run into side effects. And I repeat myself every now and then, ok, but this also can be solved through language improvement. Do you miss much more there? I don't, the rest is pretty subjective, really.

I don't judge languages, I judge solutions. With Java and how it's established, I can solve everything. What gets compared with it, is almost experimental right now, so can't be compared.

To me, the ultimate bored minds who already bury Java are just... bored minds. They are no coffin nails.