Re:Ask HN: Why does the enterprise have such a strong affini...
by pekk on Saturday July 26, 2014 @05:41PM
(#8090896)
We could pretend that this is all about the incredibly unique properties of Java and "what it got right." But that isn't really true. It's just wrong to frame the question as "what was special about Java" let alone "what can I do with language x to duplicate its success?"
As of today, the reason is it's old and established and a safe choice, everyone knows about it, and everyone else uses it, and so many people write it, and there's so much existing code in it. Even if it sucks for some purpose, that's what you pay Java developers for.
The story of how it got there is again not about the incredible unique properties of Java but about the decisions of large companies in the contexts of the 90s, both in adopting and contributing to the development of Java.
Those decisions had a broad political and business context, and insofar as they had anything to do with the language itself that would have been in comparison to what were perceived to be the serious languages of the time, like COBOL or C++.
As of today, the reason is it's old and established and a safe choice, everyone knows about it, and everyone else uses it, and so many people write it, and there's so much existing code in it. Even if it sucks for some purpose, that's what you pay Java developers for.
The story of how it got there is again not about the incredible unique properties of Java but about the decisions of large companies in the contexts of the 90s, both in adopting and contributing to the development of Java.
Those decisions had a broad political and business context, and insofar as they had anything to do with the language itself that would have been in comparison to what were perceived to be the serious languages of the time, like COBOL or C++.