[davidpatrick]

It sounds like you are just trying to justify your decision for Node. I use Node and Rails in production for different products/services. They both serve different purposes well.

"Going away" was said about .NET and PHP and they don't seem to be going anywhere, albeit they are less popular than they use to be.

Too many discussions on HN have this paranoia lurking around of whether or not "I chose the right path". I find it unhealthy, and find that the longer life of a product exposes the weaknesses of any language/framework.

[mastazi]

Language/framework fads are just that, momentary fads. I believe that, in the long term, things like good architecture, sane dependency management, well-managed life cycle (which includes provisioning and deployment) are far more important than the language/framework you are using. You may not like PHP, for example, but I would still choose to work on a good quality PHP project than a bad one in the latest flashy language/framework, any day.

[rvense]

I don't know. I just ripped out basically half the rug under my Scala app and put in a new one without the rest even noticing. It's not a very good architecture I don't think, but because of flashy language features like generics that are often dismissed as unimportant or even an impediment "in the real world", I was able to change a core part of the code that basically everything else touches and still be sure that everything works exactly as before once the code compiles again.

[mastazi]

I don't want to dismiss the importance of certain language features. I'm just saying that any Turing-complete language with a reasonable ecosystem is good enough in most situations (where good enough != perfect but hey, perfection is the enemy of the good!).

[vonklaus]

Again, I am not trying to justify my decision, I think if you asked most developers to give advice to a kid learning programming 3 years ago how to get started(with the benefit of 3 years glance into the future) they would probably lean towards node if it was between nodejs v ruby.

However, I totally agree that the longer life of a product exposes the weaknesses of any language/framework. and there are multiple paths. Just that, if you want to get good at writing software you probably need to pick a starter language with a versatile community. People still write cobol, and wherever there is code in production, there will be demand for a language, but .NET and PHP are probably not growing in demand. I actually don't know about .NET tbh.

However, there is such thing as choosing a path as, without extensive time investment, skill and knowledgebase, it would be difficult to be a truly capable python, .NET, javascript and rails dev.

It would be wise to be capable in those languages, but to be a master or attempt mastery of the one most likely to embody your interests/career would likely be a better move than being able to be less than mediocre in numerous languages. I think we are largely in agreement, and I hope I didn;t mischarachterize you.

I think rails is cool, and I now regret not learning it as I do like the scaffolding nature and I am sure I could pick it back up quickly, I just do not have a need to right now. Elixir looks super cool though and if I do learn a new language that is markedly different it is a toss up between Go and Elixir. I am messing around with python right now, but javascript and ruby are pretty similar, and pyton seems fairly similar. A functional language or a compiled language will be a radical departure from what I am used to.

[pjmlp]

.NET is alive and well.

Enterprise only cares about Java and .NET as standard backend stacks, regardless of the technology of the day HN posts how everyone is doing Go and node.js.

[vonklaus]

i actually have been interested in Java because apache has open sourced what seems to be the best collection of resources on the internet and they are almost entirely written in java for the java ecosystem. I also think I would learn a massive amount. I also am strongly considering Java and less strongly C. What are your thoughts on Java in terms of:

* How much it would teach me about programming/software design, e.g. just as a general learning excercise?

* What does Java lend itself best to/is a typical set of programs a beginner could build after say 1 month?

* Is google planning on phasing Java out and using Go?

[reitanqild]

1. Java has had huge amounts of open source code for years. (Case in point: course provider sales representative telling my colleague somewhat annoyed that Java people are the worst because "they are used to get everything for free.)

2. Im going to read that as "... 1 month after finishing studies".

I will recommend starting somewhere where you get good colleagues. When I finished school I was sure I could never work with Java: it was hard and unforgiving compared to VB and PHP that I had picked up on my own.

After getting introduced to ides and working build systems however I was starting to get work done within a week and within a year I was confident enough to make a real difference.

Also I picked up a feel for just how annoying it is to be left with maintaining code based on abandoned commercial tools (old Delphi code).

3. No idea, but IMO no way banks are leaving it anytime soon so plenty of jobs and momentum for the next few years:-)

[vonklaus]

I mean, could I teach myself Java and build something interesting in a month. Sounds like a no?

[reitanqild]

Depends on you as well as your definition of interesting.

I'd say you should start in a good team anyway because real life experience IMO is crucial and getting on a good team is a way of getting it fast and as painless as possible (I.E. without breaking your bank.)

If you just want to make "something" go with whatever is less friction for you (for me it was php), just be prepared that there will be friction in any language as soon as you step outside of the tutorials.

Also keep in mind that if you get a good job you can do quite a lot on your spare time. I used to code a utility program in php while commuting. It never became a commercial success but a rewritten version became a major hit with the church I belong to, was maintained and in use for years and gave me both experience in sw architecture as well as bragging rights in job interviews for several years. (Oh and it totally helped in getting my head ready for my paid work in the morning as well as unwinding after work.)

But I also think Java has come a far way towards beginner-friendly. If you do just accept that in Java land IDEs are a must. Getting used to IDEs was were Java "clicked" for me. Use either Netbeans (all features free, my preferred choice), IntelliJ (lots of features free) or Eclipse (all features you'll ever want is free but takes some getting used to, I would never picked it as my first IDE if it wasn't the preferred choice on my first team and they where happy to help me up to speed.) And dismiss everyone who tells you that one of them is crap or way better: it is just a matter of preference in most cases. (Notable exception: android development where IntelliJ is the officially supported alternative.)

Also learn to use Maven or gradle.

[pjmlp]

Java might have its issues, but it is one of the languages with best tools available.

For example, most languages eco-systems lack tooling like VisualVM, Mission Control, JITWatch on their canonical implementations.

https://visualvm.java.net/

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javaseproducts/missio...

https://github.com/AdoptOpenJDK/jitwatch

Also note that although many seem to be focused on Java being Oracle JVM or OpenJDK, there is a pleothora of JDKs both open source and commercial to choose from. With many other features.

For example, most commercial JDKs support AOT compilation to native code.

Or targeting micro-controllers with a few hundred KBs.

Also Java gets bashed by being all about a specific OO model, but VB.NET, C#, Eiffel, Smalltalk follow exactly the same model.

> Is google planning on phasing Java out and using Go?

Until they embrace Go in Android, ChromeOS, their Google Developer SDKs and Google IO sessions, I would say no.

[pritambarhate]

In 2001, I learned Java on my own from Java 2 Complete Reference without an Internet Connection. It took more than a month. But I have been building lots of intersting stuff with it since then. I think learning Java was one of the best decisions I ever took.

Great thing about Java is that it lets you solve wide variety of problems, right from Mobile, to Desktop to Big Data. For Machine Learning, Image Processing, some of the best libraries and SDKs are available in Java.

It's a good skill to know which I recommend to all new programmers. One important thing I like about Java is that it's low on features and it's possible to master almost all aspects of the language in relatively short period. This is not possibles with languages like C++, C# and Swift. I think simplicity is one of the reason Java and Go are popular.

[nikdaheratik]

1. My beginners class in Uni taught Java for the 101/102 sequence, so as far as that goes you can use it to implement most beginners projects just fine. It even compiles to something if you want to deal with that experience.

2. I'd say the set of programs can be pretty sparse in that it doesn't tend to play well with its native computer environments (partially be design), so it's more work to generate stuff with a GUI, somewhat more work to handle CLI programs (but not that much more), and it has an interesting set of web tools that have hopefully been updated in the 8+ years since I played with them.

3. I have no idea what Google is doing, but it doesn't matter as Java will live a very long life in Enterprise land if nothing else.

[scient]

So when you tell people that 3 years down the road the package ecosystem mess is going to be so bad that a package containing a one-line function broke half of the internet, they would go ahead and pick that technology to learn? Oh buddy.... say it aint so.