Java Is Underhyped

The perspective of an ignorant computer science undergrad

It’s likely that you read the title of this post and thought “what is this guy smoking? Java is everywhere!” You’re correct, Java still dominates enterprise and runs some of the world’s largest mission-critical applications. But Java’s adoption isn’t what I’m talking about, I’m talking about its hype. I spend a lot of time around inexperienced programmers. And what do inexperienced programmers love doing? Getting excited and opinionated about tools like programming languages. None of the CS undergrads I meet are hyped about Java but I think they should be.

Young/naive developers (myself included) often fall into the trap of fetishizing new languages and tools at the expense of productivity and sanity. Prior to working at Halp (now owned by $TEAM), I had a nearly romantic relationship with backend TypeScript. I thought the node.js ecosystem was the coolest thing ever: I loved the idea of transpiled code, live debugging, the massive package library, and even the weird and fragmented build systems. When I actually used it in production and spoke to more experienced engineers the magic quickly faded away.

I had a irrational affinity towards the JS ecosystem because it was the hot new thing; it had hype. Reality did not live up to my expectations. Today, the wonderful things I expected from JavaScript I am currently enjoying as I gain experience in Java. I feel betrayed that hype did not lead me to Java sooner. Java is fun to write, productive, and gets an unfair reputation among new developers as a dinosaur…

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