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by conventionalmem 3805 days ago
Agreed, it's crazy that there are engineers in this world that can make blanket statements like this, especially on a site like HN.

There are a lot of great languages/frameworks, and it depends on the needs you have and your team.

(I'm so fatigued by this view I hear so regularly expressed in web dev that "X is the solution to everything" - no, it's very rarely the case)
1 comments
lmm 3804 days ago
I'm more fatigued by the constant "use the right tool for the job" - impossible to argue with, and utterly useless advice for actually making decisions. Some tools really are better than others, and there is a lot of value in standardizing on a single platform. http://www.teamten.com/lawrence/writings/java-for-everything...
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conventionalmem 3804 days ago
Sure, but let's have that debate, and set down a philosophy around that. What you're arguing is not that Java is everything - but that a polyglot stack has dangers, that certain tools are often unobjectably better than others, and that we shouldn't sugar coat that. I agree, as would many of our friends in the space.

But if you're saying that everyone who is in Javascript, Ruby, Python, Go, PHP (and others) should all refactor into Java because it's the one and only ideal web backend in 2016 (or design new apps exclusively in Java) - I could pick a 1000 holes in that argument. The original comment I reacted to was:

> If you're not picking the JVM in 2016 to build your core services and web applications then you're making a mistake

My apologies if this comes across negatively (which I don't intend, as this is a respectful debate among people who care deeply about their craft) - but I'm just not convinced that you're really a full supporter of the original commenter. Your blog seems to show a fair degree of pragmatism (you consider other languages/frameworks, might use them, are ok if your friends are not using Java). I'm totally fine with "I think the majority of people should use Java" (I don't fully agree with that, but in a world where many people knew that ecosystem, I think it's a great choice) - but the commenter went much further. If s/he is looking to start a debate, then I'm fine; if that person would join any company and religiously uphold that viewpoint, I don't think they'd be the right person for many companies.

P.S. If I'm wrong, and if Java is the ecosystem that for the next few years the rules them all, I really want to make a Lord of the Rings-inspired meme about it

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