You know what isn't as quick? Websockets, non-trivial asynchronous code, boilerplate, and build times. The vast majority of my company is built on Java and we're not encumbered by legacy code, so we get to play with all the new stuff. I don't need to be convinced that Java (or even more specifically the JVM) is a good choice for many practical reasons. I live in IntelliJ and Gradle (and Maven too) all day, you're preaching to the choir.
Between having a REPL, near instaneous stop/relaunch times, and doing in 8 lines of Node.js what takes me 70 lines using CompletableFutures, I'm still going to reach for Node to prove the idea.
Now, when it takes hold and looks like it might stick around, it immediately gets turned into a Java project. Or, if the event we were building for is over, it basically just gets deleted- which pretty much says it all in my opinion.
It's not a toy language, there's some real usefulness to it, but just like anything else, there's a time and place. Currently, that place is NOT production.
I agree that Java's async support is bad (haven't had to use it much since I've been primarily Scala for years now), but I'm surprised a PoC would need to be async in the first place? Conventional one-thread-per-request is fine for non-prod, no?
A lot of projects my team did at my last company were of the "You've got 2 or 3 weeks to build this awesome thing for a launch event that will have a crushing wave of usage for about 3-7 days".
It was really fun work, because even the 'simple' stuff we built had to address some of the big traffic issues you'd normally have at a much larger scale and the work was usually very high concept or cutting edge. It would've been a nightmare to maintain for longer than a week though.
I'm surprised that you consider it controversial that a highly dynamic language can be considered fast to PoC something in than Java. There is just less typing/code that needs to be defined (I know IDEs help). Also easier to do quick and dirty stuff that I imagine would be more restricted in Java. No classes to define, just throw your values in there.
I prefer python in general but for zero-to-simple-web-endpoint I may pick Node.
> I'm surprised that you consider it controversial that a highly dynamic language can be considered fast to PoC something in than Java.
Sure, but that wasn't the argument; GP talked specifically about async and websockets, which are areas where Java is particularly weak, but areas that I was surprised would be required for a PoC at all.
Fair enough. I was mostly responding to the thread of discussion overall. I realise now that I was probably reacting more to the viewpoint of hota_mazi.
Do you have any particular reasons to prefer Node (assuming Javascript) to Clojure/Groovy?
Asking, because I do most of my development in Clojure and find it much nicer than Node both for POC and production. There's also self-hosted Clojurescript now that runs without a dependency on JVM.
Honestly, because I'm pretty good w/ Node (or just JS in general) and haven't invested the time to get good w/ Groovy or Clojure at this point.
I've only just played around with Clojure and I've written a middling amount of Groovy, but the vast majority of it involved Jenkins build pipelines, so I don't really count it.
> I can get a small web site serving JSON REST requests and memcache up in ten minutes with a simple Maven/Gradle build and full IDE integration
Java guys always say how they have really developed tooling and look down on other languages. The problem is those nice tools have become a hindrance as well. You can't develop in Java/Kotlin if you don't use those huge complicated tools.
I can't speak for all, but at least for me it prevents me from ever using Java tech. I can develop just fine using a lightweight editor in any of the languages I use. I don't need huge tools or complicated build systems. Because my languages have nice tooling that I can write manually and fully understand.
I tried using Kotlin and step one is always install Intellij.
Oh please. Let's be real, Maven is not even remotely more complicated than the typical package.json, webpack.config.json, .babelrc triple you need for any useful NodeJS project (though you can put the .babelrc into the package.json, I've heard that's the way to do it at the moment). I was so taken back that nowadays JS needs a build step too. But it's a "transpiler", not a "compiler" - cause that's something completely different.
> I tried using Kotlin and step one is always install Intellij.
So? Atom and Visual Studio Code did need to be installed too on my machine. This mentality reminds me of someone using an axe head as a hammer "I'd have to pull the hammer out of the toolbox" (install it) - that's too complicated, I prefer light-weight tools!"
It generates enough structure to scale up to reasonable projects. The nesting is a price well worth paying for consistency. Every maven project puts its source in the same structure, with the result that you can jump into any project and know how its build will work and where to find the source.
> All of this stuff is verbose and built to be generated by IDEs. It's not clear, it's not concise.
Verbose is worth it for clarity, particularly in a file you edit rarely. It may not be concise but it absolutely is clear, as the example from your own link shows.
I'm sure the tooling is useful and a lot of it reasonable. I've never approached a Java project that I did not find intimidating, either Android with all the Gradles and XML.
I've never seen a barebones project as you would when using just node+npm without all the extra tooling (webpack and friends). Node+npm is to me as simple as python+pip. Is there a natural counterpart, Java+maven or something?
And to be fair. All my attempts at approaching webpack have been even worse. And most JS-framework seed projects are similarly complex and automagical.
I don't think you need anything other than java+maven. That's all my projects use as far as I'm aware. Android probably requires some additional stuff for its packaging but I just enabled the maven android plugin and trusted that to handle it - if there's any other config I haven't been touching it.
The grandparent linked to the maven getting started, https://maven.apache.org/guides/getting-started/maven-in-fiv... . That shows what the minimum looks like - a pom.xml, and application source code in src/main/java (under its package structure). (The unit test isn't strictly necessary but is good practice).
The pom's XML header and modelVersion are boilerplate, but the rest is pretty clear and self-explanatory (though admittedly verbose).
At that point for a library project you're sorted, for an application you can run your program via "mvn exec:java" which is adequate for development. To actually package up your application for distribution you probably want to use the shade plugin a la https://maven.apache.org/plugins/maven-shade-plugin/examples... , but that's something you'd do as part of "productionisation". (Back when I worked at an early-stage startup we had things running and serving user requests via "mvn exec:java")
Appreciate the overview. It sounds similar to what I'm used to but, as you say, perhaps a bit more verbose. And some stuff is non-obvious to me, such as mvn exec:java instead of my-java-runtime main.java or whatever.
I've encountered a bit of this with most AOT-compiled stuff except for Go. Make or compiler-flags also requires a bit of learning to get going.
Most dynamic languages tend to be more straight-forward with this.
> some stuff is non-obvious to me, such as mvn exec:java instead of my-java-runtime main.java or whatever.
That's kind of our way to do virtualenv-like functionality, which is mandatory rather than optional. (Or you can specify the classpath manually in the same way you would for the pythonpath, but no-one wants to do that). IMO that's the right thing - having libraries installed in my system python has only ever caused trouble in the long- or even medium-term, even if it makes "hello world" use of libraries very slightly simpler.
There's probably a way to get a shell with the classpath set up correctly, but I always found that kind of modalness more confusing than helpful.
> I've encountered a bit of this with most AOT-compiled stuff except for Go. Make or compiler-flags also requires a bit of learning to get going.
In my experience it does all work without any flags or extra knowledge. "mvn" is the entry point for all the things you want to do - you don't ever have to know that there's a "java" and "javac" underlying it.
> It generates enough structure to scale up to reasonable projects.
It generates stupidly deep structure because Java requires a stupidly deep structure.
> Every maven project puts its source in the same structure, with the result that you can jump into any project and know how its build will work and where to find the source.
Rust, Elixir and Erlang achieve this with tooling that is practically trivial to use. Without an IDE.
> Verbose is worth it for clarity, particularly in a file you edit rarely.
> It generates stupidly deep structure because Java requires a stupidly deep structure.
All of the depth is useful. The folder structure corresponding to the package structure makes it much easier to find the source for something.
> Being concise is a big factor in clarity.
True when there is large-scale structure that varies for the reader to comprehend. Less important in an inert declarative structure. Again, look to the example you linked.
> The POM is huge and can be daunting in its complexity
Because they are honest. Maybe it is because I'm more accustomed to poms, but the package.json/babelrc mix and webpack.config.jsons are daunting to me too.
You don't need a build step for Node.js, 93% of ES6 features are already included in the latest version. Babel is more for client side than anything and that's because browser vendors take a while to implement new standards, so yeah JS has unique challenges and constraints as the de facto language of the web.
> So? Atom and Visual Studio Code did need to be installed too on my machine. This mentality reminds me of someone using an axe head as a hammer "I'd have to pull the hammer out of the toolbox" (install it) - that's too complicated, I prefer light-weight tools!"
You misunderstand my point completely. I was trying to say the Java ecosystem is complicated and the only way it works is by using large IDEs. Saying how awesome Java IDEs are is disingenuous because Java is unusable without them.
Getting a node server running the first time is actually very difficult. The libraries constantly change so fast tutorials frequently don't work. It was easy once I understood everything, but it wasn't easy the first time at all.
IntelliJ is an awesome IDE, but it's not necessary. Part of it is Kotlin as well though, that's definitely as immature (as in age and mindshare, not attitude) of an ecosystem as there is with Java.
The thing with Java is the amount of boilerplate, but the thing with Java is that all of that is ridiculously well documented or demonstrated ad nauseum. Are you building a jar with Maven? Your folder structure looks like this. War? It looks like that. Before Yeoman or any other generators even existed Maven has had archetypes that do the exact same thing.
If you compare Maven, heck, even Gradle to Webpack + Babel for even fairly trivial projects, there's no way that it's more complicated. The tools for Java are truly portable, I can't even recall the hell we used to have to go through when we had to run gulp builds on Windows because developers of various libraries had hard coded *nix style paths, etc.
Most importantly, Maven and Java really aren't a moving target. 9 months from now I'm not going to have to overhaul my entire build process because a wide swath of my plugins have completely changed directions. Stability is how you wind up with the time to make things run smoother in production. It's how you wind up with repeatable patterns and better instrumentation. You get a chance to take a breath and formulate an honest to goodness process vs. literally sprinting as fast as you can to simply keep up with the changes.
I tried following the gradle command line guide for Kotlin to build a project and it did not work and I had no idea why. No errors and nothing happened.
The edit/refresh cycle starts to slow as the project grows in Java, but node has pretty close to zero startup time and is interpreted. That plus a repl supports a much more explorative coding style where things work as fast as you can add them. No JVM restarts, compilations, or going back to change types or api's in the middle of a thought.
IDEA and Eclipse compile your code as you write it. And with Hotswap, you don't even need to redeploy anything. They also all offer REPL's that are much more sophisticated than anything Javascript has to offer.
I think you haven't used a JVM language and its ecosystem in a very long time.
It's true that the hotswap support built in to the JVM is somewhat limited, but there are tools that are more comprehensive and can hotswap new classes, methods, method signature changes, etc. (JRebel and spring-loaded are the ones that come to mind).
Still better than any dynamically typed language (I mean any) where you always have to redeploy everything since none of these language support incremental compilation, let alone incremental reloading.
If I'm using a truly compiled language (eg. C++, D), which have incremental compilation, I still have to redeploy everything since 'everything' is a single executable.
If I'm using an interpreted language I only have to deploy the changed source files. Git can do that for you.
I use Java today daily, and came from Node. It is slower to have the compile step, even on very powerful machines, dynamic types are faster to change, and there are many caveats to hot reload. The repl comment was about is about speed, not sophistication.
When something happens instantly versus a tiny pause, you don't think about seeing your change immediately on save, versus batching many changes together and then testing them. This turns out to be faster for me for explorative work. Many people agree. Just trying to explain. /shrug
I've found myself getting much better at making testing changes in such a way they can be hotswapped, then batching them up into a change when it's necessary to do a JVM restart. Sometimes I impress myself with how long I can go with just hotswaps, kind of like a code golf, but it's absolutely the biggest time suck of a Java developer's day. Besides meetings.
> I can get a small web site serving JSON REST requests and memcache up in ten minutes with a simple Maven/Gradle build and full IDE integration.
Dropwizard is a great example of this. It's an opinionated (convention over configuration) Java framework for building REST web services. You can get a 'Hello World' web service up and running in literally 10 minutes following this tutorial http://www.dropwizard.io/1.0.0/docs/getting-started.html
I can understand it. If you want to just get something together quickly then dynamic languages do have an edge. They allow you to say "just give me whatever and if it fits, it fits" and if you aren't that concerned about it breaking you can build something extremely fast.
You're just repeating the same claim without any evidence.
Why is it faster to write code in a dynamically typed language?
Most modern statically typed languages have type inference so you don't even need to write type annotations for the most part, assuming these extra characters were the reason.
So what's that mysterious reason that makes writing dynamically typed language faster?
You're leaving out a lot when you say it'd take you "five minutes with a simple Maven/Gradle build". What's a maven? What's gradle? What's groovy and where can I learn it?
I literally don't know the answers to these questions so the same task would take me hours, possibly days. Getting from zero to JSON api in node.js is fast by comparison.
Note I am not arguing whether or not it's better in the long run to be the guy that went from zero to node.js or zero to Java, that's a separate discussion.
> You're leaving out a lot when you say it'd take you "five minutes with a simple Maven/Gradle build". What's a maven? What's gradle? What's groovy and where can I learn it?
You have similar concerns with node (What's npm? etc...) These are peripheral and necessary knowledge on both platforms.
> Getting from zero to JSON api in node.js is fast by comparison
It's only fast because you already have the knowledge.
Two equally proficient developers in Java and node will set up and get a server up and running in about the same amount of time.
The idea that it's a faster to achieve in a dynamically typed language is a myth.
> It's only fast because you already have the knowledge.
No, when I said "from zero" I meant from zero knowledge.
> You have similar concerns with node (What's npm? etc...)
What's the "etc..."? Install node and you get npm with it.
Writing a REST service IS simpler with Node when going from zero, I know because I have done (or at least attempted) both from zero in the recent past.
> The idea that it's a faster to achieve in a dynamically typed language is a myth.
Doesn't seem like you're open to discussion on this
Well, to an extent this is a subjective question. With node, you get npm with it, npm is what everyone uses, and npm is clearly what you should be using too. Moreover, the basic functionality of npm is very very easy to understand.
I find the Java ecosystem terrifying by comparison. I have no idea whether Maven is what I should be using or if I should be using something else instead -- having it as a separate download makes a big difference in that regard -- and I have no idea by looking at a typical Maven config file what it does.
It's not a macho thing for me. I use the tools that are easiest to use and do the job. Anyway, I have used a lot of different programming languages, and it's the Java ecosystem specifically that I've always found overwhelming whenever I've tried to dabble with it. So I think the problem is Java, not me.
It's not that it's terrifying. It's just... why make it harder for myself? Even if it's one step (which it isn't), why? If the only reason you can give is I need to expand my comfort zone, sorry, I'll keep my comfort zone small and productivity high.
Which spends the first 30 seconds downloading a bunch of stuff before asking you for settings to start off your project. I then read the README it created and ran `mvn clean install` as instructed which started downloads that took 1:40 min only to end in a build failure with multiple large tracebacks.
Running `mvn --help` doesn't help at all and the pom file it creates is 143 lines of hard to read XML.
I've used gradle a little, I'm familiar with bundler/gem, pip, npm and dub. Maven just makes me want to run as far as possible from anything Java related.
You just described my experience with npm, except there aren't any useful tracebacks, just a note absolving npm of all blame and advising me to contact some random module author.
Edit: and of course with npm the annoying downloads happen every time for each project, instead of once per dependency version...
Not excusing any crashes for npm (having those for any package manager sucks), but `npm init` doesn't download anything or make a project that needs to, it has readable config files and `npm --help` at least gives you a list of commands. A lot of the small stuff goes a long way to making things more approachable.
in a dynamic language, you wouldn't have to worry about this; in fact, you wouldn't need to call .into() either - there's just less typing and compiler errors
But no ceremony is necessary in the cases where types can be inferred - and in the cases where types can't be inferred you probably do want to to be explicit about them even in a dynamic language.
The slow part of static languages isn't just typing out the annotations. Its needing to describe the type in the first place, and needing to change that type description if the shape of your data changes. If you want to prototype quickly in a dynamic language, you don't need to mess around with any sort of class description as you decide how you want your program to work.
Said dynamic language, not dynamically typed. Would be surprised if anyone considers Java more productive than Rails, Python (Django, Flask, etc) or Express.
Unfortunately, modern JS has Transpilers, which you have to wait for, so no, that's not the case anymore. I have not seen any NodeJS project which didn't have to be transpiled (i.e. compiled to a different JS version).
Totally false. Node.js pre-dates Babel by about 6 years so I wonder how that could possibly be true. Second, most ES6 features are already included natively in latest versions of Node so no need to transpile at all. You can even get async/await out of the box.
No one cares how you wrote 6 years ago, today the way to do it (as I've been told by many people who write NodeJS applications all the time) is to use transpilers. And:
That's a way to do it. It is not the only way to do it, even if some people do it that way all the time.
I might add a transpiler for Typescript to my stack soon, if that language turns out as pleasant to work with as I've been hearing. If I do, it'll be the first time I use one. And I've been working with Node, in production, since 2013.
Go away. I've invested weeks to learn something which at least resembles NodeJS best practices and now you come along and say "nope, we do it different" ... :(
(That was a joke btw. Thanks for the info. The consensus seemed to be that Babel is the way to go, but if your variant works for you good to hear. I will still stay with it. I like ES6 imports in Node.)
Hey, you do you. I'm just here to say that not everyone agrees, or should, that real-world best practice necessarily involves a giant pile of transpilers and bundlers.
Why?
Writing Java is really very fast these days, especially with IDE's.
I can get a small web site serving JSON REST requests and memcache up in ten minutes with a simple Maven/Gradle build and full IDE integration.