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.