Is Java Too Easy or Too Hard

Filed in archive Business on January 25, 2006

With all the Ruby, Python, PHP, etc... crowd talking about Java you would think that we were typing out punch cards and being constantly frustrated. An example of this is the interview with Thomas Fuchs of Script.aculo.us dismissing Java out-of-hand during the first five minutes of his Ajaxian interview. When I heard him say what he had to say about Java I just rolled my eyes and waited for something interesting to be talked about, which eventually happened.

Then a couple of weeks ago we hear from Joel Spolsky in his Joel On Software blog that Java is too easy. Let me take a step back and say that he didn't exactly put it in those words but that was the gist of the post. It seems as though Joel can't figure out who the really good programmers are because all of them are only learning Java these days in school. He seems to think that these students are getting off easy and aren't earning their stripes.

Now I'll say that I took a few Java programming course in college as well as C, C++, Pascal and COBOL (The last one makes me shiver when I think about it). I learned about pointers, linklists, malloc and all that other crap. I remember in my second C class when we covered creating linklists I wanted to drop the course. It was the only time I can honestly say that I absolutely hated programming. After all of that and a number of years later I haven't had to think about those things again (actually the pointer lessons have helped me understand buffer overflow attacks but that's about it).

With that said I think the Ruby, Python and PHP folks are on to something. Java with all its frameworks is to hard to deal with for basic web applications. At the moment I'm learning Spring and I see that things may be getting easier but it isn't there yet.

On the other hand I think Joel is showing his age. Either that or he simply resents having not had as good a language as Java is back when he was in school. With the number of great programmers I have worked with, many who became programmers after having finished school with non-technical degrees, I find it hard believe Java is the reason Joel cannot find good programmers. I think Java is the perfect language to learn in school. But with that said I bet in a few years students will think Java itself is too hard. Then we will start seeing students graduate having learned Ruby, Python or PHP. I hope that is not how things go but with the number of critics out there giving Java a bad name I wonder.