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0 pointszaphar5y ago0 comments

The dilemma was always a false choice. You don't need kotlin to get rid of your boilerplate. Java is just a capable of being concise as any other language. Java's verbosity is a cultural artifact not a technical one.

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The_rationalist5y ago

No it is not as capable. The cultural verbosity is only a subset of the verbosity in java. The cultural one is great as those long API names allows for standardized and maximal clarity. The one induced by language syntax is accidental.

https://www.mediaan.com/mediaan-blog/kotlin-vs-java Things like state of the art type inference, data classes and lambda syntax, no semi colon and ton of other things allow for reduced syntactic noise.

ed25519FUUU5y ago

Don’t get me wrong. I use java every day and quite enjoy it, but when I compare it to writing in Go or Kotlin, java does sometimes feel a little like meta programming. Especially if it’s a spring app, which is quite common.

eitland5y ago

This is obviously a matter of taste but I enjoy Java more when I stay away from Spring.

mumblemumble5y ago

So, technically, you can get rid of a lot of the more egregious clutter with things like Project Lombok.

But I'd argue that, if you need to lean on compiler plugins to do it, it's sort of a rhetorical Pyrrhic victory.

pjmlp5y ago

And I would argue that adopting guest languages, alongside the extra complexity that they bring on board regarding extra IDE plugins, more layers to debug (has to pretend to be Java to the JVM), FFI issues (calling coroutines from Java), and creating their own library eco-system is not worth the trouble, beyond some short term feel good.

As long as the platform exists, its main language is the one holding the keys.

runawaybottle5y ago

Can you describe this a little more. How did the verbosity enter the culture?

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