Maybe Java is for Neurotypicals

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Java confuses me. This comes from someone who has 5+ years of experience with the language. I still don't get it.

For one, I don't know what a programming language is anymore. In Mule ESB, for example, there is this idea called flows. A Mule flow can have variable assignments, conditionals, loops, and flow references that look suspiciously like subroutines. All my peers called it "configuration". To me, it looked like a programming language.

It gets weirder when it comes to Groovy. An architect insists that "it's just Java" because you can copy and paste straight Java syntax into it and have it work. To me, what made Java Java was the fact that it had compile-time type checking. Groovy is runtime checked as far as I can tell and has language features that don't exist in actual Java.

I don't know what "code saving" is anymore either. What I see in a lot of Java projects is frameworks where you add 20 lines of boilerplate XML code in order to not have to write 5 lines of boilerplate Java. I don't get it.

I have a suspicion that a lot of what doesn't make sense to me makes sense by some NT leaps of logic or rationale. Maybe it's crappy wiring in my brain. Maybe it's biases resulting in my personal projects. Maybe I'm just plain wrong.

That's the beauty of C#. More and more people are realizing that .NET is a better platform than Java.

It's doublespeak I suspect. Doublespeak is something nt people do a lot better at than I can. Some Java frameworks seem to attract and inspire that kind of talk. I think it's one of the things you almost have to embrace to "fit in".

I don't know whether or not there's as much of a doublespeak problem among .NET devs because I've never worked in a .NET shop. C# language features seems to empower programmers enough to where you don't need it as much.

Although I speak as someone with Python biases. My crippled lambdas bow to your C# delegates good sir.

Ode for the good old days of Borland Pascal

I have been a Java developer for many years and I have never worked with Mule ESB or used Groovy. Groovy is not Java, it's a separate language, mainly used by people developing for a platform named Grails. Beginning in the late 90s, XML was all the rage and eagerly embraced by platforms like Hibernate and especially Spring. In the last several years, the trend has shifted away from XML, to be replaced by annotations and sometimes even plain old Java code. For example, the latest Servlet specification allows you to entirely dispense with the the deployment descriptor web.xml and replace it with java code that executes when an application is deployed or launched.

Does Java rely mostly on body language? Can you get away with poor grammar because the computer knows well enough what you mean, so you can?t be assed to take the rules seriously? If this fails, can you get the computer to do what you want it to by showing how pissed off you are and threatening to beat it up if it doesn?t stop being so pedantic? Does it help if you casually point out how much stronger you are than it, so it?d better please you?

If not, then no, it?s still for aspies

@ Spiderpig,
Oh how I wish there was a computer that understood how close they are to being wiped from existence. I do believe they understand perfectly well how frustrating they are to us. Which is why they do what they do.

Computer languages. I learned how to program using C++. I like Pascal, Java, C(and the derivatives). I can learn the regular languages far easier than ones that aren't.

For tinkering, I like Java the best. I like the fact that Java/Eclipse is open source. I dislike having to shell out even part of my scarce supply of dollars to Microsoft, Oracle, or the others, just so I can mess around in my shop.

I'm not an NT, nor am I promoting NT ignorance regarding Autism, but I find your statement about "NT leaps of logic" to be quite flawed. First of all, Autistics and Aspies are very capable of not making sense (spend some time in the Politics/Philosophy/Religion forum and you'll see what I mean). We aren't perfect logical computers. We, too, are human and have flaws just like NTs. To claim that Aspies are always logical and rational and to claim that NTs characteristically take leaps of logic is, frankly, ignorant.

XML is horrible, but it's being replaced by JSON which isn't. XML made sense at the time-"it's like HTML! We like that! Web!" but now it's like "closing tags are a pain and brackets make words less readable!"

SGML/XML is good at representing markup, but most data is in a tree, and JSON is better at representing trees concisely and legibly.

As for Java, it's great if you know what you're going to do from start to finish. The more flexibility you need the more it hurts. I prefer Python, and use Ruby professionally.

XQuery is a dream once you're adapted to it. JSON soaks up less bandwidth, but is otherwise compatible. The problem with Java is that it only talks to more Java. Exist-db is the most useful thing ever written in Java - check version 2.2 before you do anything else

Interesting post. "NT leaps of logic" has an implied claim that "aspies are always logical and rational". I honestly didn't make that connection. ..... which leaves me feeling kind of confused. I'm shutting up now!

*cough* *cough* Sorry I'm allergic to bullcrap. In all seriousness though, I started my programming experience with HTML in high school. After I realized how obtuse and ill-thought-out that language was I tried Java and fell in love. I have my first taste of C++ coming up next semester but there is no way I will ever prefer C to Java.

Unless I have a change of heart between now and tomorrow morning, I will be studying a course called, "Certified Java Associate", which is being run by a nearby learning provider. At £230 it seems like a worthwhile investment to me.

I like Java. It is a simple object oriented language. I have worked in FORTRAN, various assemblers, Basic, C, C++, ADA and a whole bunch of scripting languages. Java allows me to write straight forward reusable code. Building large systems may be a different story. For that, C/C++ is my go to language.

My first computer was an IBM 1130, in 1974. Programming was restricted to punch cards in COBOL or FORTRAN. Times have changed.

Java, and people writing in Java tend to encourage a type of code that looks like a tower of bureaucracy.

Depends on whether we're talking about genuinely qualified programmers (computer scientists, electrical engineers, mathematicians and so on) or so-called self taught programmers.