Is Java Losing Appeal?
October 18, 2010 by Frank Salinas · 5 Comments
My theory goes like this: Good java developers are hard to find because fewer and fewer of them are being created. New developers are not choosing java to “cut their teeth” on. And I suspect that coming from whatever they are coming from, java doesn’t look appealing.
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The excerpt above came from a blog post I read this morning. It made me ask the question: Is Java on it’s way to being phased out by newer JVM languages? Judging by some of the comments to this article at least a few believe so. But which JVM language has the potential to replace it? I found this article: The Next Big JVM Language which evaluates a few contenders.
Java is not sexy to the next generation of developers. The language is considered old, bloated, overly complex and has more than a few legacy quirks which fuel many language debates. Scala, Jython/Python, JRuby/Ruby and Groovy all seem to be popular alternatives.
I’m a 15 year old person studying to become a developer (mostly in my free time), and I can tell you that Java is not something I would ever consider. I consider myself to “know” Python and [Objective-]C, but, Java isn’t even on my radar. I know some people my age who would use Java, but to me it just seems outdated and bloated to most of us, I think.
Since I guess I’m the “next generation”, it doesn’t seem that your situation is going to get any better…
According to these sources: http://www.numberof.net/number-of-java-developers/ and http://jaxenter.com/how-many-java-developers-are-there-10462.html there are 9,007,346 Java developers world-wide. That’s a very large and active user base. While it seems that Java may not be the choice of the next-generation of developers it is still the primary language for over 9 million developers.
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Frank is a senior level Java developer working for a privately owned company based in San Francisco, California. He has over 12 years of experience developing software on Microsoft and Linux/Java/JEE platforms and specializes in SaaS, eDiscovery and Document Review platforms.
Most experienced developers with 10+ didn’t learn Java as a first language. It has only been more recently that Java has been widely available to be a first language for developers.
Many newer laungages are cooler and simpler to start with. Java’s restrictons and extensive libraries appear not very useful when you are 15, but when you develop commercial programs (unless not getting a job is a goal of yours) Java is more appealing.
Different languages have different strengths and weaknesses. Java is not as useful in a single developer, rapid development where the cost of broken code is very low, nor is it likely to be able to compete in this space.
Over a career, a developer should expect to learn many languages, if you start with Java at 15, there is no guarentee that you will still be using it when you get a job either.
I completely agree with Peter Lawrey’s comment above. As a professional developer for the last 12+ years I find Java has the tools to make programs you can rely on in a production environment.
I think if this blogger was trying to be objective he would have included the number of Java job postings as well. Last I heard Java jobs were by far the most prevalent. Jobs come from a business need, not the next fad language.
Hacking at home and hacking on websites is not building robust enterprise applications. That said, the tools of the younger generation will eventually displace Java.. but it’s not going to happen for a while yet. Me thinks that the reason that this person can’t find anyone is more to do with how they are looking rather than people not being there.
Managers keep their “good” java developers pretty happy. So they are usually not looking for jobs. So you cant find them.