Editor's note: As early as the 1990s, various assertions about the death of Java began to appear. This year, more than ten years later, such remarks are still heard. Searching Google with the keyword "java is dead" yielded about 199,000 results. This shows that many people have written or commented on the death of Java. Regarding this language that has been dead for more than ten years, the author outlines the current status of Java and its development trends in this article, effectively countering these rumors. The full text is as follows:
Many commentators on the death of Java do so because they dislike certain features of Java (such as closures that were not available in Java at the time) and consider backward compatibility, so they question the effectiveness and suitability of new features. Sometimes They also believe that Java has become too complex. Of course, while these talkers are lying, they will also propose another language, which is their favorite language. I dare say that I can criticize their proposed language as much as they criticize Java. It’s just that we don’t have to at all.
Ironically, for a dead language, Java is doing really well: it is still number one on the Tiobe Programming Community Index, a position it has held for a decade (only in 2000 In the middle of the year, it ranked second after C language). Judging from recruitment websites, Java programmers still have strong demand.
Therefore, the statement that Java is dead is really nonsense, and will remain nonsense for at least the next few years. There are many reasons: first, many computer science programs and programs in other fields are written in Java as the primary language; second, Java has a huge and stable code base; third, there is a large amount of vendor investment, tools, Training and other products make both vendors and their customers dependent on Java. Fourth, Java has the largest developer community and open source ecosystem. When it comes to choosing which tools, vendors and developers to use as the future development direction, Java is still the first choice. Apparently, Java is not dead at all.
Taking a step back, even if Java is really in its twilight years or about to become old, its future will not be bleak based on other languages that are close to death. For example, many developers talk about C++ being dead, but it has been resurrecting recently because the release of Google Go language has rekindled the vitality of C and C++. And given the historical accumulation and foundation of C++, the only language that can completely replace it is probably Java. And even if Java wants to completely replace C++ in its own areas of strength (such as GUI and database development), it will still face a big obstacle: the huge cost of migrating C++ applications to Java. Although JNI, CORBA, web services and similar technology areas have mixed the two languages, they have their own complexities and problems. Therefore, it will take a long time for a sluggish programming language to completely die, and Java is far from being in slump.
Of course, the biggest threat to Java is the rapidly growing number of JVM-hosted languages such as Groovy, Scala, JRuby and Clojure. Since these languages run on the JVM, their integration with the Java language is more convenient and simpler than Java itself. And Java is facing a huge impact: Oracle's acquisition of Sun. But whether the outcome is good or bad, we can only wait for the final completion (or cancellation) of the transaction.
So despite Java's bloat and signs of age, when all factors are taken into account (Java's vast ecosystem and products, existing code, and investment), it's hard to see how there will be one in the near future. Language will be more successful than Java. Java is far from dead and should not be included in the list of dying languages. (Translated by Wang Yulei)
Original link: http://www.dzone.com/links/i_use_dead_programming_languages_java.html (need to circumvent the firewall)