On Thu, Jan 26, 2006 at 09:08:27AM -0700, Jesse Stay wrote: > > >From my experience of working with Java developers (I know there are > some very smart ones on this list, so please don't take this as a > personal stab at you), the majority that I am aware of are most aware > of Java, very closed-minded, more prone to choose closed-source > solutions, and generally can't stay as up with the latest trends and > standards, other than those relating to Java. I very much enjoy my > current job over my last because of this openness and speed of > development we are able to work in. >
There are lots of developers like that who program in Visual Basic, C, C++ (esp. w/ Visual Studio), C#, Cobol, Fortran, etc. There are LOTS of developers who don't value self-improvement, distrust open source, and aren't particularly innovative. I don't think most of them enjoy their jobs. I submit that all your observations say about Java is that it is popular. Any language with the mind-share that Java has will be able to attract the lowest common denominator developer. If Ruby suddenly made huge inroads in corporate development, you would find the same thing. There would still be innovative, open-minded developers using Ruby, and it would still be a good language. Even if a few hundred thousand programmers who hate programming were forced to start using it. Saying "one company is a lousy development environment and they use java" does not prove anything about the relative merits of a language. There are LOTS of companies that would suck to work for no matter what language they chose. Barry Roberts /* PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug Don't fear the penguin. */
