Java, Ruby, and even Python Sucks

There is a bit of a flame war unfolding between Javanistas and Rubyists. I could trace this most recent scuffle to an article posted on JavaLobby by Daniel Spiewak about a little Java library called ActiveObjects. The aritcle is promoting this Java-based but Rails inspired Object Relational Mapping library. ActiveObjects is a Java implementation of the Active Record pattern made famous by Ruby on Rails and it’s use of convention over configuration. In touting the benefits of ActiveObjects, Daniel complains and grossly exaggerates that in Hibernate “you have to write more XML than code!”

Gavin King, the founder of Hibernate, responded that XML was soo 1999 and now they overuse annotations. Gavin wrote, “Hibernate Annotations has been around since early 2005 and there is no longer any good reason for people to define mappings in XML.”

Out of the blue and into the blogosphere, Obie Fernandez responded to Gavin’s ‘FUDdly’ remarks with his top 10 rant why Java sucks ass! Basically Obie resorts to fighting FUD with FUD. Obie goes ballistic on compilers, IDEs, frameworks, libraries, High School Musical 2, and Java developers themselves. Obie rants that most Java Programmers are morons. From his writing, it is clear that Obie idol worships DHH as the fucking second coming of the fifth generation computer language era. Obie’s top ten reasons why Java sucks include that the language makes money for vendors. From his Ruby rage you think he hopes to make Java vendor money by writing Ruby books.

To add FUD to the flames, Daniel, which started the whole my milkshare (ORM) is better than yours drama, responded with his top ten reasons why Ruby sucks ass infinity times ten. Daniel writes, “Some of Obie’s points are either misinformed, or deliberately misleading.” According to Daniel, Ruby sucks goatse ass because more of most Ruby programmers are morons, Ruby has an annoying community, and because Ruby has DHH. Touché.

Now, I may be a bit late to the party but I also have my favorite reasons why Java sucks. I also think Ruby sucks too. And just for good measure, Python sucks the most!

Ruby Sucks Because

  • Ruby does not any major corporate sponsorship or backing
  • At RubyConf everybody wants to talk about Rails
  • At RailsConf half the audience is writing books from lectures given by the other half
  • Ruby is a DSL for Rails
  • Most people think that DHH wrote Ruby or never have heard of Matz
  • There is no language specification for Ruby
  • Ruby will fragment to different wannabe successors
  • JRuby will ultimately go where Ruby can’t, the enterprise
  • Closures are by no means unique to Ruby, get over it
  • Ruby and Rubyist seem to have an inferiority complex when it comes to Java, get counseling
  • Rails is too tightly mind controlled, managed, copyrighted, owned by DHH and 37signals

Java Sucks Because

  • Java has way to many freaking frameworks
  • There is sooo much to learn in developing an application
  • Java has far too many APIs and libraries that are designed by committee
  • People still think Java is slow
  • Java still suffers from the fiasco that was Applets
  • Java still suffers from the fiasco that was EJB 2.x
  • There too many flavors of the JRE (Java 5, Java 1.4, J2SE, JEE, J2ME, JWTF)
  • The JRE has a lot of junk in the trunk
  • Methods gets deprecated, nothing gets removed, the API gets bloated
  • Java does not always run everywhere, sometimes you need to go native
  • Java is still primitive
  • Java developers are a dime a dozen

Python Sucks Because

  • Python cares about whitespace, I don’t care for that
  • Python programmers are morons
  • I like David Chappelle better than Monty Python
  • Guido van Rossum doesn’t work at 37signals
  • Python has no personality like JavaScript or personalities like Dave Thomas
  • Python will never go mainstream, not even with Google’s backing

To be honest, the back and forth almost sound like ‘yo mama’ comebacks. I mean, this is all to reminiscent of the east coast/west coast baby mama drama between Biggie Fries and Six Pack Shakur. There’s even some would be wanksta crew hating on CGI, Pascal, Ada, and Basic.

Here are my Jerry Springer final thoughts, if programming languages evolve beyond closures and white space to natural languages, are we still going to have these language wars? If we where to program in a natural language, say in English or German or Hindi, we would be as writers. Our JEE applications would be as thick as Moby Dick and our Ruby on Rails CRUD applications thin as Dear John letter. We as programmers tend to think we are artists, do writers and artist act as such? Oh Hell Ya!!

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