Seems like an interesting effort. A developer is building an alternative Java-based backend to Lemmy’s Rust-based one, with the goal of building in a handful of different features. The dev is looking at using this compatibility to migrate their instance over to the new platform, while allowing the community to use their apps of choice.
Too bad it’s java
I see you woke up and chose violence.
I just self host and avoid Java like the plague due to how annoying it is to manage
3 billion devices can’t be wrong…
One dude writing a Java server app, compared to Google writing an operating system, pretty equal comparison lol
What’s annoying about it? Deploying a
warto tomcat is one of the easiest things one can do.If you are a Java shop, and you do tomcat, then cool, maybe you’ve worked out the mysteries if Java deployment and managing resources (ahem, memory), and upgrades etc over the life cycle of a project. But most people doing deployment don’t want a one off Java app as a snowflake in their intra, if they can help it because it requires more buy into the ecosystem than you want
There’s nothing wrong with java
There is nothing inherently wrong with Java I would speculate, but it can be a royal pain in the ass to manage if you just need one application to work.
I know the basics of the language, but from what I have seen managing it, I don’t like it. Just from being in security, I constantly hit barriers with devs because of versioning issues. There is always some ancient app running on a version of Java that can’t be updated, for whatever reason. Version management is always a pain, but with Java? Goddamn.
I admit ignorance about the details of Java and how awesome it is for job security. There is no way in hell I could even debate anyone who has watched a single video on YouTube about Java. However, from what I have seen, it either works great or it fails explosively with billions of randomly allocated threads attempting to suck memory from every other server within 50 miles.
If it’s awesome to code with, cool. I am just a little salty from my experiences, as you can tell.
Legacy Java software is a massive pain in the ass. No arguments there. I’ve been migrating an app from Java 11->17 for the last 2 months and it’s a versioning mess. So many libraries deprecated and removed that don’t have easy replacements.
It’s great because things don’t break when they’re running, but the problem is upgrading.
Version management does seem to have become better with the last couple versions
(Confirmation bias, ENGAGE!)
We have a few of those projects coming up as well. Thankfully, I just get to poke at the apps to make sure the issues are resolved.
But yeah, one of my examples of rogue threads is a coding issue, not inherently a language issue. Even log4j issues can’t be completely blamed on Java “The Language”.
Well, it wears down your keyboard.
If you have a good IDE, and Java has the best IDEs of any language I have used, then auto complete will take care of most of that for you.
Oh yes there is
Who cares? If it works, it works.
The biggest strength of Java is that many programmers has years or even decades of experience in it.
i know right! same thing with PHP! many progs decades experience hahaha
Same thing with COBOL! So many devs with … Wait. Are any COBOL devs even alive still?
Same thing with COBOL! So many devs with … Wait. Are any COBOL devs even alive still?
I promise you one thing, those that are still alive are making bank right now.
Usually at banks, where they easily earn 2x+ of what I do working in Java. I happen to know one IRL, and their meetings with the boss are funny because it doesn’t really matter what number they put on the table, their boss cannot fire them. They could not replace them and they need 2+ COBOL devs in house.
i took some cobol, i am very annoyed i did not stick with it. i could have retired by now.
I happen to know one IRL, and their meetings with the boss are funny because it doesn’t really matter what number they put on the table, their boss cannot fire them. They could not replace them and they need 2+ COBOL devs in house.
I can concur, I’ve seen the same thing in real life myself. Definitely a blast watching the employee have the power.
PHP has been having a resurgence in popularity because it works.
PHP never went away. Wordpress, Mediawiki, Slack, Facebook, etc etc etc. IMO PHP is likely to have created the most wealth per line of code of all languages, including C (edit: since 2000). It’s completely under the radar.
I care, as someone who self hosts and have been doing so for 22 years. Java has always been the most annoying thing to maintain as a holster, especially on low resourced machines, like my raspi
Java is for enterprise level software that’s robust not for self hosting on a pi
You self host lemmy.world?
No, why does that matter?
Also you don’t have to worry about memory management
You don’t with Rust either.
Lol how about one written in NodeJS? 😆
Brainfuck would be my choice if we are making things harder for ourselves.
I bet there are forks already. NodeJS is quite popular really.
I love Java.
As someone who used to be a Java programmer, I can’t make any sense of that statement.
Java is the first language I learned. I love how structured it is and how it forces you to work within the paradigm. I might never use it again, but it shaped how I think of programming.
That’s why I like Java too. The fact that it’s so strict means I have to think about projects in a certain way and can’t just wing my way through it like Python.
Right. And then you’ll write better code when you do use Python or JavaScript or whatever.
As someone who mostly uses C++ and C# Java is much easier for most projects
I have a hard time believing that rewriting the backend from scratch would be faster than getting PRs approved on the main project.
Forks like this with one guy who “knows best” usually die a slow quiet death as they get left behind by the main project.
I think how quickly this project has gotten to near feature parity is a testament to how slow Lemmy development has been. Think about scaled sort (a feature that has been hotly requested since the migration) and how long that took to get merged in. A sort should not by any means be slow to implement.
IMO slow development isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
I like that there was a two month period for apps to adopt the new login mechanism and that they smoke test releases for a fair bit on lemmy.ml before releasing to the world.
That said, a few months ago I wanted to do a light fork of Lemmy to proof out a few very minor things on my mental wishlist but just haven’t had the free time to meddle with Rust.
IMO slow development isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
Sure but even just recently there was the example of breaking federation over Christmas. Some of those issues persist through 0.19.3 which came out today
Similarly scaled sort would have made a huge difference for small communities in the period directly after the migration.
Yeah, that was definitely annoying. I would’ve preferred to have some kind of official workaround but I figured something out that got me through until the updates.
I probably lean too hard into forgiveness on this stuff but I know a number of open source devs who have burned out for various reasons this past year and would much rather see slow development than risking a rush towards burnout.
IMO slow development isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
Quite the opposite, often it’s a benefit as you don’t end up wasting time and changing code for features where you don’t actually know yet whether your current usage demands or supports them. There’s a lot of genefit in not moving fast and not breaking things. Mostly that, well, you don’t constantly break things.
A sort should not by any means be slow to implement.
Sure, if the sort key is something readily available. But for scaled sort they have to compute relative size/activity of the communities the specific user is in. The cost isn’t the sort, it’s computing the metric.
I’m not talking about the literal sorting algorithm. Pretty sure scaled sort is exactly one more operation than hot.
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I’m a Java developer and I would much rather pick up Rust to join an active project than try to rebuild something that already works using a less-marketable language.
Sure, but it’s a lot more work for you to get to a point where you can be an active contributor.
Is it really a lot of work for an experienced dev? I can pick up most new languages in a day or 2 unless it’s a total paradigm shift.
1-2 days is enough to learn the basics, but I doubt you’ll be as nearly as productive as with something you’ve been using for years. Keep in mind that new languages also mean new frameworks, etc, some which take years to actually master, but at least months to get a good handle on them.
Also, from my understanding, Rust is a bit of a paradigm shift.
Yeah but there’s a big difference between having “picked up” a new language and being on the level where you can viably add useful code to a distributed federated deployed platform.
I have 12 years in Java by now, I’m fairly confident with it. Rust, yeah no, not for production code.
Sure, anyone can pick up a new language or two over a weekend. That doesn’t mean they are confident enough to contribute to large scale programs with it. That takes much longer to learn.
Yeah I agree. Rust is an excellent language when you absolutely must be as safe as possible but don’t want garbage collection. But there is a level of precision required of developers which makes it slower to development in. Other languages like Java, Python and Go are all quicker to develop in. Java is much easier to refactor IMO
Depends on amount of technical debt really. Sometimes rewrite is the only way. But in general fixing things can be done. It’s just matter of time, focus and effort.
Why Java though ? Like really ? It’s… Better than any other compiled language ?
Because modern Java is an OK language with a great ecosystem to quickly build web backends. And there are lots of java devs which means more potential contributors.
Exactly. It’s also using Spring Boot, Hibernate, and Lombok. It looks just like projects at work. It might be the first fediverse project I contribute regularly to.
+1 same
I tried to contribute to Lemmy, spent a few hours really confused by rust and gave up. I can meaningfully contribute to a Java/Spring project, not a rust one.
Spring Boot, Hibernate, and Lombok
Ah, yes. How about he kitchen sink and another 5000 dependencies to make Java bareable to code in? Actually lets skip Java cos it’s an over-engineered cluster-fuck that considers verbosity a virtue.
If you don’t want to contribute, don’t. Do you think being a hater is helpful?
It sooooooooothes my soul. 🙂
Hello world in Java = 500 lines of code.
Hello world in Rust = 3 lines of code.
Java is over-engineered corporate bullshit used by banks and Android development. Nobody programs Java for the fun of it.
Hello World is < 10 lines in Java. Just say you don’t know the language and go away.
Java runs the majority of corporate software out there, and it is very good at what it’s built for.
I’ll take Java over Python/Rust any day of the week
Removed by mod
And yet it’s still a better option than 90% of languages out there.
Trendy languages are great until they break something or lose support. Java is consistent, and that’s the most important part.
You sound like some Java dev personally offended you so much that you can’t separate the language from a person you hate for completely irrelevant reasons.
Like I said, I’ll take Java and extreme OOP over Python/Rust/Go any day of the week because it’s actually readable code instead of a clusterfuck of hundreds of methods in one file
The only reason you don’t like Rust is it’s the first language in a long time that’s threatened the dominance of C, the bedrock of programming. If it can do that then Java is going to be under threat too. Go failed cos it’s a shit language and Python isn’t even the same category. Java is more readable than Python? You’re having a laugh or you’ve never seen a friggin line of Python in your life.
Python:
for i in range(1, 10): print("Hello: ", i)Java:
import static java.lang.*; public class BentJavaClass { public static void main (String args[]) { for(int i=1;i<11;i++){ System.out.println("Java is shit: " + i); } } }10 lines vs 2. And you think Java is more readable?
Back in the day Java couldn’t even handle concatenating strings and numbers and needed you to fucking convert the integer into a string beforehand (
String.valueOf()). I see it only took you about 20 fucking years to figure out something most other languages had out of the box.What’s with all the unnecessary braces? The semicolons? Punctuation causes blindness and coldsores. Java is a cancer and it’s devs should be shot and their bodies piled high before being tipped into the sea.
Ok, so now build an api that can handle 100k iops with a cache, db calls and everything else, and tell me how simple that is in Python.
Java and Python, like any programming languages don’t do everything well. They do a few things well, and most things adequately. Python is great for scripting and small applications, but once you’re hundreds of files into a corporate software project it becomes near unreadable. Java is great for large scale applications but suffers if you want to make a single purpose app.
I’d also argue that yes, the Java is more readable at scale. Everything is explicitly typed, braces are so much better than indents (is something 20 indents or 21 idents deep, I never know), semicolons are useful for delineating ends of statements.
It sounds like your only expose was Java in uni and have never worked with anything at scale.
BS
Java devs are the reason humanity will never have FTL drives.
Oh right, that’s a much less moronic take. Well done genius
Probably because everyone knows it and its more predictable
Predictable in what sense?
If you say the function should only recieve one argument and returns always boolean. It is predictable to only allow the wanted args and forces you to return a boolean.
For example in a less predictable programming language e.g. Python: I can do all above but python does not stop anyone to put more or less arguments to a function, or a developer not adding typehints or not complying to them and return a string instead of a boolean.
But i had it wrong rust is similar to java on that part.
But still it is a lot more popular and easier to start with. So there will be a lot more contributor to sublinks than lemmy ever had.
Well in that sense Rust is even more predictable than Java. In Java you can always get back exception that bubbled up the stack. Rust function would in that case return Result that you need to handle somehow before getting the value.
That i dont understand? How can it be a result that i need to handle? If its not correct than java will throw an error. ( As expected, shit in shit out )
It’s a great and probably the best error system I’ve seen, instead of just throwing errors and having bulky try catch statements and such there’s just a result type.
Say you have a function that returns a boolean in which something could error, the function would return a Result<bool, Error> and that’s it. Calling the function you can choose to do anything you want with that possible Error, including ignoring it or logging or anything you could want.
It’s extremely simple.
If I except a boolean, there is an error and get a Result, is Result an object? How do I know if I get a bool or error?
It’s probably got the best library/tooling ecosystem of any language out there. Certainly dwarfs Rust in that regard. Easier to find devs. Reasonably efficient thou not as much as Rust and typically less memory efficient. It’s a perfectly good suggestion for a project like Lemmy. I’d reach for Java or Go before Rust for a project like this but you know, that’s just me.
You see, Go would’ve been a better option than Java.
It would have been a good option. As is Java. If you want to do it in Go, go ahead.
What missing features are so important that you decide to recreate the entire backend of Lemmy because you think the devs aren’t fast enough?
Java instead of Rust is going to be a big thing for a lot of people who would like to contribute in their spare time. Yeah, Rust is cool, but every CS grad and their mother knows Java.
Back during the migration surge a few months ago, you commonly saw a LOT of comments from folks saying they would love to help eat away at the project’s backlog, but they just didn’t have the time or energy to learn Rust at the moment.
Yeah, Rust is cool, but every CS grad and their mother knows Java.
Sure, twenty-five years ago, when Sun was pushing their language hard into colleges everywhere.
Now? Sun Microsystems doesn’t even exist, and everybody hates the JVM in an ecosystem where VMWare, Docker, and Kubernetes do the whole “virtual machine” model much better.
Now? Sun Microsystems doesn’t even exist
That was a long, long, long time ago.
Java has continued to be very popular after Oracle purchased Sun Microsystems.
Can’t say I agree. It feels like an almost even 50/50 split between Java and C# when I look at job postings.
I think rust is a very pragmatic choice, lemmy is decentralized, the security benefits are a necessity when it comes to self hosters donating hardware
Java is also memory safe
Ah yes, that explains the log4j fiasco
That wasn’t a memory safety issue, that was a what the fuck were you thinking design issue. It would have been batshit in any language
Yeah, Rust is cool, but every CS grad and their mother knows Java.
This is quite an outdated view I would say.
Perhaps, but a lot of devs wanted to contribute to a Java client, and that’s what they were saying.
Lemmy doesn’t have to have missing features for someone to want to write their own implementation. And in a decentralized system you want multiple implementations to exist. This is a good thing
It seems to be more language focused than hard to PR against the main repo.
Java is much more widely known than Rust, which means a much larger pool of developers. I never contributed to the original Lemmy server because I couldn’t wrap my head around a full production scale rust project. I’ll very likely contribute to this because I work with production Java code daily. Im sure I’m not the only other dev who has run into this.
Also maybe there’s just too many disagreements with the Lemmy owners, who are a bit extreme for a lot of people.
Good mod tools
This looks like the major driver of the project, IMO. The Sublinks roadmap is full of feature ideas geared toward better moderation, both at the community and instance level.
Trust and Safety tooling, apparently.
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Made me think of this.
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What’s MApalmtreebicepAB
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I prefer DreamBerd which solves that endless debate by indexing from
-1.deleted by creator
Oh, you mean, like Taiwan?
for a moment I thought you were talking about 🤣-lang
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Lmao at people not being able to read that.
Competition is good. We need to take the web back
There used to be hookers, and blackjack. In fact just bring back the 80’s
Wot
Back then BBS wasn’t an acronym for what you think it was.
Java backend? What year is it?
2024, Java is still the 2nd language on GitHub with 11,7% of the total code hosted, while Rust is number 13 with 1,8%
Java has been around for decades longer than Rust, comparing total code numbers doesn’t tell the whole story
That’s not the whole story, most of the Java code that exists is proprietary, java is undoubtedly #1
You actually think there’s more Java code than JavaScript? Basically every website in the world feels the need to use JS nowadays.
obviously I wasn’t counting JS because by sheer volume, HTML+CSS+JS will outnumber everything because it’s the only combo for the browser.
but if you restrict it as JS for Backend, then obviously it’s not even close to Java.
If you can write off JS because “you have to use it because it’s the internet” then I can write off Java because “you have to use it for billions of 20 year old legacy applications”.
I am not writing it off, I am saying it has no competition in the browser… therefore irrelevant to the discussion at hand.
and btw, even in the link https://madnight.github.io/githut/#/pull_requests/2023/4 Javascript is not first, Python is, over Java.
but once again, you would actually have to look for the backed JS applications, you are not choosing java over JS for the web, at best you would choose JSF and that still uses javascript.
Js is not a real language and can’t hurt you
Oh definitely, but I took GitHub as it should reflect “hobby projects”
Is Big Coffee paying you to shill Java all over this post?
If only… More seriously, I want Lemmy/Kbin/Sublinks to succeed, and the development rhythm of Lemmy made me perplex for a while.
A new option with a more popular language could address this.
Check the back of every dollar for an Oracle database support contract, that’s how they get you!
Every year since Java existed
Java is still a strong language.
A year in which the number of Java developers and ecosystem dwarfs that of Rust.
I think the people who say this and think Rust is the second coming of Jesus, just don’t code. You choose the right language that’s needed for the job. Server stuff like this is Java’s bread and butter. As amazing as Rust is, it has proven to not be a great choice for Lemmy’s development.
I’m curious why you say Rust “ has proven “ to not be a great choice. There is a lack of Rust programmers, but its been the fastest growing community on GitHub for multiple years now, and has proven to be viable at all level of the stack.
Full disclaimer: I code and work in Rust daily on the backend and frontend.
Full disclaimer: I code and work in Rust daily on the backend and frontend.
Would you and your colleagues be interested in contributing to Lemmy’s codebase? I’m genuinely asking, I’m still surprised by the low number of contributors for a project that has 40k active monthly users
I barely have time to contribute to fix bugs in the dependencies I use. If I had more time for OSS contributions I might, but I’m not in my 20s anymore and when I’m not at work I’m taking care of my family.
My colleagues and friends are free to do as they please.
I guess that’s the same for most of the userbase. Which is probably why switching to a more spread language could increase the number of contributors.
Not to mention a lot of massive companies also use it at every part of the stack, Rust is good at it all and it is beautifully and perfectly suited for tasks like these.
It certainly sounds more likely that you “just don’t code”.
God damn you are fucking annoying
an alternative Java-based backend
kill it with fire
Next step, is to remake Lemmy in JavaScript. Pure JavaScript, no typescript, only express, nothing else
rewrite it in perl with a flat file database.
an alternative Java-based backend to Lemmy’s Rust-based one
Going from a modern well-designed language to an old-and-busted, kitschy, memory-hogging, bloated language. This is literally a step backwards.
Rust, Go… hell, even Ruby-on-Rails or whatever Python is offering nowadays would be a better choice.
I’m a long time Java developer who was recently moved to a project written in Go. All I can say is: What. The. Fuck. I swear, the people who designed the syntax must have been trying to make every wrong decision possible on purpose as a joke. The only think I can think of is that they only made design decisions on the syntax while high on shrooms or something.
Like, why in the actual fuck does the capitalization of a function change the scope??? Who thought that was a good idea? It’s not intuitive AT ALL. Just have a public/private keyword.
I did a lot of Java prior to doing Go. I think they’re both good. I don’t like the Go privacy/scope thing and I genuinely hate it’s error handling but it’s pretty much 90% good pragmatic choices IMO. That said, I still think Java is a fantastic language and it makes a lot of sense for something like Lemmy
Modern Java isn’t that bad, and with new developments like the graalvm and cloud native builds, or what they are called, the footprint of a modern Java app can be comparable to an golang app.
Modern Java kinda has the same image problem as modern PHP. Not saying is all great, but it sure has seen quite the improvements in the last years
they are also working to make developers have less boiler plate. java might be an old language but the development has not stopped but only going better these days.
Nah, Java is alright. All the old complicated “enterprise” community and frameworks gave it a bad reputation. It was designed to be an easier, less bloated C++ (in terms of features/programming paradigms). It’s also executed fairly efficiently. Last time I checked, the same program written in C would typically take 2x the time to complete in Java; whereas it would take 200x the time to complete in Python. Here’s some recent benchmarks: https://benchmarksgame-team.pages.debian.net/benchmarksgame/fastest/python3-java.html
I haven’t had a chance to try Rust yet, but want to. Interestingly, Rust scores poorly on source-code complexity: https://benchmarksgame-team.pages.debian.net/benchmarksgame/how-programs-are-measured.html#source-code
Or C#, it’s literally “Java, but good”.
The only time I would choose Java for a new project is if I had a hard dependency on something that only works with Java…
Seems like here the number of developers comfortable in Java is a dependency
I understand that being a problem for Rust, but not for many of the other “better than Java” languages on this list. Like, I dunno…C#?
If I’m being honest though, I just really hate Oracle, and that’s enough to give me pause over anything they dip their fingers in.
https://madnight.github.io/githut/#/pull_requests/2023/4
3.4% vs 11.7%
I think C# is probably more popular than it advertises here, but not on GitHub.
C# is regularly under-represented in OSS, in part because for most of it’s existence, the primary implementation (.NET Framework) was not open source or cross platform. It is also very popular in fields where open source is not the norm (game development, bespoke backend infrastructure, embedded apps).
I said it was easy to find C# developers, not that there were more of them on Github.
If the number of possible contributors on github is the big factor here then Python is the obvious choice at 18%.
Or Kotlin, which is much more “Java but good” as it even runs on the JVM
Yeah, but then you still have an Oracle dependency in your stack 🤮
You can switch to Kotlin Native, which depends on C libraries, or Kotlin JS, which depends on whatever libraries your JS runner has. No matter whatever Oracle has done, they produce a pretty good library, API spec and OpenJDK.
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There’s a library for JS: https://join-lemmy.org/api/index.html
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There’s a user made OpenAPI spec: https://github.com/MV-GH/lemmy_openapi_spec - You probably mean that one
I’ve had similar issues as you mentioned that the dev did fix - but yea, Typescript has less precision than Rust (the source) or the openapi spec. And the Typescript client is build for Lemmy-JS and not build an example for other language client libraries…
Though the OpenAPI Documents in C# and Java are based on reflection of the source itself, and Rust doesn’t have Reflection like that… So it’s probably difficult for them to add without manually maintaining the OpenAPI specs
Same. When making pythorhead, I had to dig into the rust code to understand things.
Having a frontend rewrite seemed more critical than trying reimplementing the backend in a different language.
Remember, Lemmy had 4 years of development to iron out bugs, and this is essentially promising to make something in months that has a fully compatible backend to support all the third party apps, while adding features on top of what Lemmy has, and with a better front end with better mod tools to boot, with a complete rewrite of everything.
The scope of this project has planned for is already unviable. Suppose that Sublinks does reach feature parity to the current version of Lemmy, congratulations, the backend or mod tools is not something a regular user is going to notice or care about at all, all they will know is that suddenly, there are weird bugs that wasn’t there before, and that causes frustration.
And this project is going to get more developer traction because… Java?
I’d like to be proven wrong, but I’m very sceptical about the success of Sublinks, because it look like a project that was started out of tech arrogance to prove a point than out of a real need, I don’t work in tech, but the general trajectory of these kind of projects is that “enthusiasm from frustration” can only take you so far before the annoyance of dealing with mundane problems piles up, and the project fizzles out and ends with a whimper.
Lemmy had 4 years of development to iron out bugs
Lemmy had 4 years to accrue technical debt and make foot-guns first-class features. A rewrite is probably exactly what it needs.
Have you read the source code? I’m not trying to be a smartass, I’m genuinely curious.
I have and if I’m honest I’m probably a little bit too harsh. I think the bigger issue is honestly the priorities of the dev team. There’s good reason that this project is focussing on moderation tooling.
And you think that a rewrite would magically solve all those technical debts?
Magically no, but sometimes a clean slate is easier than a refactor. I’m speaking generally though, I’ve never looked at Lemmy’s code, and I’m not even who you originally replied to.
I have higher hopes. Java is three times more developers than Rust (https://www.statista.com/statistics/793628/worldwide-developer-survey-most-used-languages/), and you can see in this thread a number of people saying they could contribute as they know Java and not Rust.
Let’s hope for the best.
Java is a corporate language that most devs hate. Rust (Lemmy) is more popular as a hobby language that devs enjoy hacking in for fun.
Hm, Java is hated by devs, but still 2nd language on GitHub with 11,7% of the total code hosted, while Rust is number 13 with 1,8%?
How much of that 11.7% is 35-character class names?
I’m only half joking.
It’s by amount of pull requests, so the length of class names and other Java boilerplate doesn’t count.
Stockholm syndrome.
And even more, the Lemmy codebase doesn’t really have any important developers besides the two main devs: https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/graphs/contributors.
Even looking at the contributions to something like Mbin, which has been around for much shorter, you already see 6 people with more than 50 commits, while Lemmy has one
We have 13 contributors with Sublinks so far. I expect more will come after the announcement.
Java devs like you need to step away from the PC and stop assaulting the world with a terrible language. You should be ashamed of yourselves for inflicting decades of misery on the world.
Java will go the way of COBOL. The future is Nim.
You’re delusional if you believe people care about Nim. It has been around for 16 years and is still nothing in comparison to Java. Java won’t go anywhere and is here to stay.
I don’t like Java either, but there’s no need to insult the developers for using a language they like.
“I’m right, and if anyone disagrees, it’s because they’re brainwashed”
There’s literally no possible way to argue against this type of logic.
The weight of my intellect is a heavy burden to bear.
Irrelevant
Typical Java dev attitude.
Thanks but I’m a network engineer, I’m just saying your argument is pointless, the majority of devs support a certain language. How they or you feel about it doesn’t matter one bit.
Java is a corporate language that most devs hate
Citation required, because strangely enough people whom I hear about complaining about Java never seem to be the good developers but the ones I wouldn’t hire
That’s bullshit, frankly
As a java dev, I can say that we hate working with java and love working with java at the same time.
Ah, an anime consumer. Explain to me why FMA:B is the greatest anime ever made?
fmab is another regular anime that’s overshilled.
Jesus H Christ.
Just peeking at the source code and it all looks like pretty standard stuff. Looks just like apps I’ve worked on at several jobs.
Is it sexy? No. But a lot of people have experience with this and could help develop.
Only time will tell if this project pays off though
I’m pretty sure Nutomic was a Java dev before starting work on Lemmy and learning Rust from scratch. That by itself should already speak volumes.
One-Up projects like this rarely ever turn out well, that’s from my own experiences. Even though this isn’t a popular view, I still think I’m right on this one, we can circle back in say, 6 months, to see if my predictions are right.
it it common to announce a ‘major rewrite’ without having it complete?
i mean, at the moment, theres little to discern it from lemmy at the moment… why make a big public proclamation about it before you even touch the front end?
To get contributors to the backend?
i guess. i would think there are better avenues looking for devs though
There are some projects that start because of “tech arrogance” as you describe the current situation. MariaDB, Git, LibreOffice are some of the most famous ones, but I’m sure there are more.
But does it have blockchain AI integration?
Based on all the other threads and cross posts it just seems like this software is being created because Jason Grim doesn’t like the lemmy devs or their politics. I guess that’s as good of a reason to fork as any. I’m happy with the way lemmy is and how its being created so I have been doing monthly donations to them for its development.
It’s not a fork though. It’s a complete rewrite in another programming language. That’s way more effort than a petty project.
The truth is, this might succeed based on developer reach. I love Rust, but I know it won’t have the reach (yet) that Java can, and more developers mean faster progress.
In the end, between this, Lemmy or another project which may be a fork of either, the success will be due to efforts of everyone involve at every stage. This wouldn’t exist without Lemmy, and Lemmy wouldn’t exist with ActivityPub.
I’m not sure I believe “faster” progress really means anything when two communists are creating a hobby software that isn’t really for business or necessarily targeting growth at all costs.
This is not hobby software, this is public good software. They are paid in large part by grants
Removed by mod
I am not a communist. I cannot believe I had to write that.
Oh, so you are a double extra secret communist {taps side of nose}
Sorry, my question got removed. But it was a genuine question (curiosity.) I didn’t mean to disparage you.
a missed opportunity to name it Jemmy
I’m just here for the joke
EDIT: sentence structure
I didn’t know Lemmy was written in Rust.
Lemmy is how I learned about Rust.
This actually makes me want to contribute to lemmy.
I like this, I will contribute to this, I think a lot of Java haters in this thread fail to realize just how massive Java is compared to everything else.
Rust might be the latest, hottest, bestest Java killer out there and it might be a completely superior language to Java, doesn’t matter, it’s dwarfed in terms of how many people actually use it for real projects, projects that should run for years and years. Even if Rust is the true Java killer, it’s gonna take a good few more years for it to kill java, measured in decades, there is just way too many projects and critical stuff out there that is running on Java, that means lots of jobs out there for java, still and still more.
This means there are a lot of senior Java programmers out there with lots of years of experience to contribute to this project.
Plus Lemmy itself having alternatives and choices is just a good thing.
Agreed. I mean COBOL is still a thing, and that’s a language that’s been dead for 30+ years.
I am not a fan of Java. However, I think that you are 100% correct. This is a potentially very useful stack to have available and I hope that the two projects track together well.
This project has potential for high velocity development that Lemmy will never be able to match, purely because of the languages. Rust is, factually, slower to develop in than Java, even for experienced devs. Add to that the greater population that is comfortable with Java, and you have a recipe for really pushing interesting things and innovating quickly. Possibly establishing a relationship somewhat like Debian Sid to Debian Stable. It could also be interesting to have some low-level, Rust modules that are shared between the two when Lemmy gets to 1.0 (API stability), if there is something that is more optimally implemented in Rust but that would introduce more coupling.
Thank you for your perspective
Languages won’t grow if you ditch them for other ones. There’s lots of reasons to use rust, outside of the size of the project
I think you will find that the biggest reason to use a language is to get paid for it and there Java is very well positioned
That’s the reason for for hire devs yeah, but if you are starting a new project ( especially a community one like lemmy where the profit motive is different) choosing your tech stack is a complex decision
Rust is as much of a Java killer as C++ is. You could say Rust is the C++ killer, but I really don’t see how Rust would be that comparable to Java, which operates at a higher level instead of memory and pointer management. IMO, Kotlin is the Java killer.
I’ve been hearing a lot of good things for a while. Lookin forward to it.
I’m hearing hype from the people making it… dunno why anyone else would have anything positive or negative to say yet
