logoalt Hacker News

koakuma-chantoday at 2:28 PM7 repliesview on HN

As much as I love Java, everybody should just be using Rust. That way you are actually in control, know what's going on, etc. Another reason specifically against Java is that the tooling, both Maven and Gradle, still stucks.


Replies

jayd16today at 2:55 PM

Not knowing what's going on in Java is a personal problem. The language and jvm have its own quirks but it's no less knowable than any other compiler optimized code. The debugging and introspection tooling in Java is also best in class so I would say it's one of the more understandable run times.

Gradle does suck and maven is ok but a bit ugly.

show 2 replies
piva00today at 2:40 PM

Gradle does suck, it gives too much freedom on a tool that should be straightforward and actively design to avoid footguns, it does the opposite by providing a DSL that can create a lot of abstractions to manage dependencies. The only place I worked where the Gradle configuration looked somewhat sane had very strict design guidelines on what was acceptable to be in the Gradle config.

Maven on the other hand, is just plain boring tech that works. There's plenty of documentation on how to use it properly for many different environments/scenarios, it's declarative while enabling plug-ins for bespoke customisations, it has cruft from its legacy but it's quite settled and it just works.

Could Maven be more modern if it was invented now? Yeah, sure, many other package managers were developed since its inception with newer/more polished concepts but it's dependable, well documented, and it just plain works.

show 1 reply
shermantanktoptoday at 3:10 PM

I’ll never understand the impulse to tell the entire world what to do based on your own personal preferences and narrow experiences.

It gets a reaction, though, so great for social media.

pjmlptoday at 3:14 PM

Rust has no place other than deployment scenarios where any kind of automatic resource management, be it tracing GC or reference counting, is not wanted for, either due to technical reasons, or being a waste of time trying to change people's mindset.

kronatoday at 2:36 PM

> That way you are actually in control

Programming in Rust is a constant negotiation with the compiler. That isn't necessarily good or bad but I have far more control in Zig, and flexibility in Java.

show 1 reply
j-vogeltoday at 2:38 PM

I'm a fan of Rust too. But there are millions of Java applications running in production right now, and some of them are running these anti-patterns today. Not everyone has the option to rewrite in a different language. For those teams, knowing what to look for in a profiler can make a real difference without changing a single dependency.

show 1 reply