Still I think that developing with the play framework is a very productive process and can be compared with the likes of ror/django etc with the benefits of type safety all the way (including the templates)

http://www.playframework.org/documentation/2.0/JavaJson

which is a 404.

I also don't see a nice way to respond with the appropriate format based on the accept-header...not that you can't write that yourself.

http://www.playframework.org/documentation/2.0.1/JavaJsonReq...

http://www.playframework.org/documentation/2.0/JavaXmlReques...

it's all over the place...search for "working with json" on those pages. Thanks for the correct link though.

it states that the jackson library ( http://jackson.codehaus.org/ ) is included in the framework which allows for type safe json bindings

With Scala statically typed and verbose are not synonymous. Statically typed = high performance. Type inference and compact syntax = expressive. Best of both worlds. Languages like Ruby bring expressive syntax, but performance suffers. Performance is becoming increasingly important with mobile applications, one of many reasons Ruby adoption has stagnated since the end of 2010 (see open source contribution and indeed.com charts).

Probably more comparable to Groovy in syntax and performance.

Also very very much fashion lead by hipsters who must be using the newest coolest untested thing on the planet.

    Laziness, Impatience and Hubris

C/C++ programmers moaned about Java and garbage collectors the same way Java programmers are moaning about dynamic language.

The real reason to use languages like C and C++ is performance. The reason for dynamic languages is rapid prototyping. Java is somewhere in the middle but not really ideal except for where you want to compile your software to run on an imaginary CPU which can be emulated everywhere :-)

As for performance, it really is amazing how fast node.js is. It's like a slow static language rather than a fast dynamic language (by that I mean, the gap between it and Java is smaller than the gab between it and Python). I don't know why that is, but I hope every dynamic language has that potential and that someone manages to unlock it.

I have always felt that Java was ill-suited to web applications generally, and that the main advantage of using it for web apps was being able to make use of third party libraries written in it. In this regard it's kind of like "why would you write your web app using DCOM on Windows?" Well, maybe because you are recycling VB logic from desktop apps?

Typing is a problem. Thinking too hard? Where does the OP imply he is averse to thinking? Being turned off that "fucking XML files are controllers" is being averse to thinking?

> Also very very much fashion lead by hipsters who must be using the newest coolest untested thing on the planet.

And those untested things would be? Rails is untested? Or Django? Or Flask?

XML has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with Java the language. Some frameworks might use XML. There might be some built in functions/objects that deal with XML. But that doesn't mean you have to use XML. I certainly haven't in the 12 years I've been using Java.

Weren't we talking about what OP said, and how per you, it's being averse to thinking?

> Part of it is a framework issue. Struts is horrible...absolutely, stunningly horrible. Your controller is an XML file (seriously). Freemarker (the main templating language) makes ColdFusion look awesome.

Now if some framework has achieved this level of retardation, I would rather not think about it. There are better things to think about. I would be absolutely fine being averse to thinking about it.

Just write a simple HTTP server in Java, and have it work as you want it to. Without XML...

No, you can't.

Your "simple HTTP server" proposal is roughly on a par with suggesting that a web developer should design his own security protocols. The idea is simple enough, but there is a lot of subtlety involved in covering all the edges cases properly, and a lot of very smart people have spent a lot of time building, testing and maintaining good tools for these jobs. Why would you reinvent the wheel, with a flat edge across part of it, a single spoke connecting to the axel, and in only one size that won't be the one that fits under the arch next week anyway?

Idiomatic way of writing Java application requires usage of XML's in an extreme way.

Its almost like Java and XMLs exist for each other.

Compare this to Haskell, where a single keyword might involve substantial thought, or APL, where one character more or less could represent a pretty fundamental restructuring of part of the program.

That Java makes you repeat yourself is not controversial. That being averse to this means you dislike thought is a somewhat bizarre position to hold.

The English language makes you repeat yourself. I don't see it as a bottleneck. I've never considered <speed of typing> a bottleneck to programming. possibly when programming some assembly routines. But if you're typing too much, you're probably repeating yourself too much, which means you're doing something wrong.

Because only through lambdas can you actually do OOP: a core of OOP is to tell objects to do things. That you can do with lambdas, through customizing "the thing". Without lambdas, you are left with the requirement to painfully and painstakingly get bits and pieces in or out of objects in order to do the thing yourself, ending up with a horrendously procedural language with a smattering of objects added on top.

It's no secret — or mistake — that blocks are first-class components (and literals[0]) in the ur-OO language: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smalltalk#Code_blocks (as well as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self_(programming_language) )

[0] and really one of the few pieces of syntax

Think of a piece of code like:

  array = [1..10]
  evenNumbers = array.where(x => !(x % 2))

In Java where people seem to like typing unnecessary stuff it would make sense to not have lambdas as then you can type extra stuff. Also lambdas would reduce KLOCs thus making teams using java with lambdas less productive.

This is similar to the reduced productivity seen by teams using scala or clojure on the JVM.

Also, OOP has nothing to do with procedural or functional languages, it's completely orthogonal.

    new Callable<Integer>() {
      @Override public call() {
        return 1;
      }
    }

    for(final Iterator it = container.iterator(); it.hasNext();) {
        final Object o = it.next();
        println((Integer) o);
    }

    container do: [:o |
        Transcript print: o; cr.
    ].

Who cares about paradigm purity? Especially given on a language that's not totally pure already.

99% of websites are still built "the way they were built in mid-2000", and there's nothing wrong with that way.

Client-side rendering and such is not the "new way", is just an alternative way for certain types of websites, that is still quite immature and can take you to a world of pain if done bad (see Twitter).

    @Path("/hello")
    @Produces(MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON)
    class HelloController {
      class Greeting {
        public Greeting(String name) {
          this.content = "Hello, " + name;
        }
        public final String content;
      }

      @GET
      public Greeting greet(@PathParam("name") String name) {
        return new Greeting(name);
      }
    }

    > curl http://localhost:8080/hello?name=me
    {"content": "Hello, me"}

  get '/hello/:name' do
    content_type :json
    {:content => "Hello, #{params[:name]}"}.to_json
  end

"public static void main()" isn't a lot of code. It's three keywords, and one identifier. You may consider it a lot of characters, but it's pretty rare that a programmers bottleneck is speed of typing.

I wish people would stop confusing "number of characters" with "amount of code".

And FWIW, I find your example far harder to decipher. I have to know what => means, # means, what : means, etc etc etc.

Add to that, in your example, if you typo one of those characters, your code may well still run, but will fail. With Java, if you typo a single character, it's more likely the code just won't compile.

We could all code in regular expressions or something akin to that, maybe perl one liners. But "number of characters" isn't a good aim. Readable, maintainable, well written code is.

I think you are being pedantic about characters vs code. But, for what it's worth, I disagree. You are having to create 2 classes, define a field, a constructor and use four framework specific annotation. I consider all of that code (made up of characters).

Both versions should be unit tested. The unit test might be more important in the Ruby version, but so too will it be easier to write.

The other point I'd make is that Java is probably about as verbose as english is. But we all manage, using English. We don't moan on and on that talking, writing, reading is so inefficient and we should all switch to something better. English also has odd grammar and spelling rules which are inconsistent and plain stupid sometimes. Yet, English works pretty well for what we use it for. Communicating.

Why is Java considered inefficient and English not? Maybe because we don't need to create a new class for every concept in English. Yours is a pretty poor analogy; English vocabulary is extensive but it is not inherently verbose.

Anyway I am only writing not to say you are wrong, but rather, since other people are arguing with you reasonably and you are dismissing them without consideration, your argumentation is wrong.

No. I'd rather read "int foo; bar.printLn()" than "%foo => &bar :print"

Less special characters. More words.

Each to their own though.

"An unordered tuple Z going from a1 to an is a defined as for every x in Z then x is a1 or x is a2 ... or x is an"

than

"An unordered tuple Z (a1,...,an) is defined as [x : x = a1 v x = a2 v ... x = an]"?

I take that as not being (or not wanting to be) familiar with the language you are reading. If you'll read Ruby, at least browse a manual to know what {} and # mean.

I'll agree with that wholeheartedly.

You've made this argument in multiple posts now, so I'm just going to point out here that people doing science and engineering use formal, mathematical notations precisely because they do offer more precise and concise ways of expressing the necessary technical concepts.

There are plenty of reasons to criticise some of those notations with hindsight, but "not being English" is not among them.

So rather than defending the code example on merit, you dive into pedantic nit-picking territory. I used to be defensive about my choice language as well, till I matured and realized holding onto sacred cows just hurts your ability to learn from others doing it better and being more productive; and just clouds your ability to choose the right tool for the job.

More code = more code, to read, to decipher, that hides intent, that adds complexity, that can have bugs and can go wrong. Code-size is codes worst enemy.

I don't even know Ruby, but it's implementation is vastly more readable and would look a lot closer to what the perfect DSL would look like for this task, than the Java example.

      @GET
      public Map<String,String> greet(@PathParam("name") String name) {
        return singletonMap( "content", "Hello, " + name );
      }

By changing a single line, the java version can also produce XML or text response. By changing two lines, it can also respond to POST requests.

And that's just the top of the iceberg. Oh, and in the ends, it's way faster than Node, Ruby, Python and most of the dynamic languages.

   response = {:content => "Hello, #{params[:name]}"}
   respond_to do |wants|
      wants.json { response.to_json } 
      wants.xml { response.to_xml }
   end

I actually cannot write your example easily in Sinatra/Ruby/etc, without making my object either a Hash or an ORM subclass, customizing serialization, or pulling in uncommon libraries.

Here's your complete example, in reasonable Ruby. It's longer than the Java.

    class Greeting < Struct.new(:content)
      def content
        "Hello, #{super.content}"
      end
  
      def to_xml
        {:content => content}.to_xml
      end

      def to_json
        {:content => content}.to_json
      end
    end

    get '/hello' do

      response = { :content => Greeting.new(params[:name]) }

      respond_to do |wants|
        wants.json { response.to_json } 
        wants.xml { response.to_xml }
      end
    end

    class Greeting 
      include JsonObject
      field :content
      def content
        "Hello, #{@content}"
      end
    end

    get '/hello' do

      response = { :content => Greeting.new(params[:name]) }

      respond_to do |wants|
        wants.json { response.to_json } 
        wants.xml { response.to_xml }
      end
    end

Java makes the assumption that you need a lot of boilerplate code, so being able to make changes easily seems like a big deal. Other languages avoid that boilerplate and can make the changes just as easily for free.

That's twice as many lines you need to replace as in Sinatra:

    get '/hello/:name' do

    route :get, :post '/hello/:name' do

If you think this is a feature, you might actually like Sinatra/Ruby :)