Far from it: it’s still one of the top programming languages as per various indices including TIOBE. I used to be a Java fanboy during my early days as a software engineer. It was what Python is today during my college days – a modern and cool alternative to the dinosaur languages C and C++ with a very engaged community.
At some point, I left Java behind due to its verbosity and aging toolset. Dart and Kotlin became my new favorites in the strongly-typed world, but sadly I could never get many opportunities to use them in a professional setting outside of a few hobby mobile apps.
So when I listened to the stackoverflow podcast episode Java, but why? The state of Java in 2024, I was pleasantly surprised to know that Java is not just not dead it’s one of the top 5 fastest languages in 2024! That thwarted my perception of VM-based languages which I had always seen as much slower languages that compiled directly to machine code like C/C++ and Rust. Besides, the podcast guest Lenny Primak made a pretty convincing argument in favor of Java – modern features, speed, and more concise syntax. I love it when someone talks beyond high-level mumbo jumbo and goes into the technical nitties and gritties to strongly justify a language or framework.
The last bits of Java code I wrote were in v8. At the time, the latest and greatest version was 11. After checking with my wife I came to know it’s now in v22. Long live Java!
P.S. Lenny Primak’s journey is a seasoned software developer turned professional jet pilot. Inspiring!