The Best Programming Language

The Best Programming Language

Roughly 10 years ago, there used to be a time when I really believed Java was the answer to almost everything. JSF2 was just appearing, and the component model they had was amazing. GWT was out in full swing, with the plan to conquer the world. EJB3 were the next big thing. Ten years later it is all dust. Sic transit gloria mundi.

JSF2 turned out to be a terrible idea, since the component model is stored on the server, and kept in memory. That means behaviors such as "back button" on the browser were tougher to implement. Scalability was also a nightmare.

In the same spirit the static GWT compilations prove to be excruciatingly slow for development, and due to the nature of Java, couldn’t keep with the cool kids from JavaScript. Angular, React, and Vue came and took the world by storm.

EJB3s were designed before the world of containers, being now a relic, both the Java runtime, that needs a few hundred megs of RAM just to start. With the advent of golang, and the resurgence of python, it’s hard to seriously consider Java for micro-services.

But to me this is a lesson. I understand now there’s no one size fits all solution for probably anything.

From UI, to services, storage, or orchestration, there’s a tremendous number of available options. Each solution finely tuned to solve best usually one specific kind of problem. So our job as crafters of software becomes making the correct picks. Knowing, and selecting from this incredibly rich solution space, solutions that work for the specific problem we’re trying to address.

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