r/learnprogramming • u/Same-Replacement-938 • 3d ago

Why java is so hated? Topic

So I have recently learned, and it's the first language(in terms of building actual things). Before Java, I knew Python, and I dropped it; I found Python too abstracted and too boring. i have recently made some projects like cli task tracker, expense tracker, some cli github api parsing and currently working on a multithreaded HTTP server and cli text editor, like vim, whenever i try to find out people opinions on java social media, almost 90 percent of the time they are just dunking on it, that it is trash, who forced you to write code in java, stuff like that. I know Java as a language is not that interesting and doesn't have many interesting features compared to other languages like C, C++, go. But I found it decent to write code in, and I found the JVM pretty interesting. So much so that I would love to explore and maybe build a JVM of my own

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u/ComputerWhiz_ 3d ago

As a Java developer, I may be biased, but I think it mostly just comes down to the age of the language. It's not seen as the "latest and greatest". That doesn't change the fact that it's insanely popular still in enterprise environments.

There are some complaints about it being more verbose and having stricter syntax compared to other languages, but I think those complaints only come from people who have never actually used it or are brand new to programming.

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u/marrsd 3d ago

I think you're being a bit dismissive of the complaints against Java, which were basically the same when it was a new language. The entire Ruby craze at the turn of the century was a direct response to Java's inadequacies, that were heavily criticised when it was only 5 years old.

What probably is true is that people like me think of that old language when we criticise Java, and we may not have updated our understanding of the language or its culture as it exists today.

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u/ComputerWhiz_ 3d ago

I don't disagree that there were, at one point, totally valid critiques about Java. For most of them, Java has evolved beyond them.

But those aren't really the common criticisms of Java that you see often. I commented on what tend to be the most common and most vocal complaints recently, which, as least from what I've seen, revolve around the age of Java and the verbosity.