alt Hacker NewsThis... Confuses me profoundly. My entire career I've worked with Java, and it's mostly a pretty decent language, imo. I think my biggest gripe with Java is the JVM. It's limiting, doesn't really provide any value(the proposed value is portability, but we always run apps in docker containers anyway, so what is it really doing for us?)
I (kinda) get why someone might want to write Haskell rather than Java, but I'm just not sure why you would want to run Haskell on the JVM?
Replies
This project isn't for running Haskell on the JVM, it's for writing a compiler that produces JVM bytecode. You'd use it if you wanted to implement your own JVM language in Haskell or maybe if you wanted to have some kind of JVM-backed domain-specific language embedded in Haskell.
The reason most "serious" or important software is written for the JVM these days is because it gives you an unparalleled combination of performance, productivity, and observability. There's almost no competition if these things are what you need. The problem isn't so much why pick Java among the alternatives, but that there are hardly any alternatives.
An interesting take.
You get lots of things for free when targeting JVM bytecode. GCs, JITs, interop with one of the largest and most battle tested ecosystems.
Pretty good performance for low effort is a big win.
Wow, I think I have almost the exact opposite opinion here.
Java is an ok language, but what really makes it shine is the JVM. It's one of the fastest VMs out there and is one of the most customizable ones as well. For example, pretty much all other languages with a GC have just a GC and that's it. Java allows you to pick and choose your GC based on the workload.
It is one of the least limiting VMs out there because any knob you might want to tune, can be tuned. It's a huge value add.
I think the only part of the JVM that's not great is the fact that objects are bulky and the lack of value classes. Which ultimately means every struct like object you want can have a pretty hefty price in terms of memory. But otherwise, it's best in class basically for everything.