I'd totally pick Java for a new project in 2023.

The stable and mature ecosystem and fantastic tooling along with very low amount of library churn makes it one of the better options for anything server-side.

You get all of this by choosing Kotlin or Scala.

Yeah, but why though? Seems like mostly a bandaid for old Java version.

I agree with this. Java8, Java17, and Java21 make Scala/Kotlin far less appealing while being mainstream.

The only reason to pick Kotlin instead of Java is because Google says so on Android.

It's probably the most widely chosen language for new projects today across the board from enterprises to startups.

I've not seen a new project started in Java in a decade, and it's pretty far down in the StackOverflow developer survey [1]. Do you have some data to back your claim up?

[1]: https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2023/#section-most-popular-t...

Every language above Java in that list (except possibly TypeScript) is forced by the development target or domain. JavaScript and HTML are forced by web dev. SQL is forced by databases. Python is forced by machine learning. Bash is forced by targeting UNIX.

Also there’s no such thing as “an HTML project” or “a SQL project.” So I don’t think your survey link is telling you what you seem to think it’s telling you.

What Java Application can't be written in Javascript/node?

You can write anything in JS, but it's not suitable for a great deal of things.

Java/JVM is still the best platform for large/complex/enterprise server applications.

Java is not the JVM. Lots of new projects on the JVM go with Kotlin or Scala.

JVM is the Java. It is literally reference implementation. JVM changes to accommodate changes in the Java language, not the other way around.

Are you saying that there are no other languages than Java that target the JVM?

No he's saying that java gets the features implemented from the bytecode spec first. And you well know it, or maybe you have no idea and are just a kotlin fan boy...

The VM also knows about Java the language, its idioms, and language features. It’s a two way street.

You're loose with the terms. Java is not "literally reference implementation", it's the platform language of JVM.

While this is a major advantage, Java has also its fair amount of problems, some of them unfixable (or rather, the Java team is unwilling to fix them). It looks like Java will never get a proper fix for the whole in the type system named null, while there are some great languages running on JVM solving that.

Whatever problems it has, Java calls the shots on JVM.

Nah, a drop in the Java ocean outside Android.

That is simply not true. In the Enterprise space it is probably in the top two.

What's the other one ? C# ?

What does "Enterprise space" even mean?

Medium to big companies outside the HN bubble.

Do you mean non-tech/non-software companies?

No quite. Amazon (including AWS), Google, Netflix, Snowflake. From my own personal experience.

> It's less of a popular choice for new projects than it ever was.

Totally disagree. I think it was at its trough of popularity in the Java 8 initial release timeframe around 10 years ago, when many companies were still stuck on Java 6 and other languages had moved way ahead. In the last few years, since around Java 17, there has been a ton of enthusiasm and I think it would be the best choice for a huge number of use cases.

> It's less of a popular choice for new projects than it ever was.

[Citation needed]