Why They Called It Java | Prime Reacts

Recorded live on twitch, GET IN
/ theprimeagen
Article link: www.infoworld.....
Written by: Kieron Murphy
MY MAIN YT CHANNEL: Has well edited engineering videos
/ theprimeagen
Discord
/ discord
Have something for me to read or react to?: / theprimeagenreact
Hey I am sponsored by Turso, an edge database. I think they are pretty neet. Give them a try for free and if you want you can get a decent amount off (the free tier is the best (better than planetscale or any other))
turso.tech/dee...

[@JosifovGjorgi]

Java is legendary For enterprise software development, companies had to pay for compilers, linkers, OS, IDE to Borland or Microsoft, because C/C++ were the de-facto standard. By the year 2005, companies had to pay only the engineers, because everything you need for enterprise software development was OSS, from OS, runtime, IDE and libraries. Linux and Java made the biggest shift in the software and that shift lead to software production explosion.

[@ivanmaglica264]

True, but Java did not use to be OSS until about 2005 or so. And even then you needed to pay if you wanted to put it in production in some situations, like if you wanted to bundle java runtime with your physical product. Oracle is trying something similar nowadays with official JRE distributables.

[@keyboard_g]

It’s fair to call Java legendary. The programming world shifted. What they taught in schools shifted. All those early smart phones ran it. I’m not a fan, but it’s impact is undeniable.

[@David_Box]

Nah still too much. It's like an epic-cool at most

[@danvilela]

Hitler also changed the world and is taught at schools every day. Is he "legendary" though?

[@tasheemhargrove9650]

@@danvilelaSo you think Java is closer to Hitler than Michael Jordan, or another legend like Albert Einstein? Java was a paradigm shift for sure, and a positive one.

[@danvilela]

I don't think it was a positive one at all. Bad code has been created everyday as well as bad programmers because of this paradigm shift.@@tasheemhargrove9650

[@pixelsam123]

Unfortunately they never shifted away from Java 8 and now we have to deal with this old version in the education system

[@jamestillman5247]

It is legendary, the amount of apps that it has served up over time, its a household name to anyone who is even slightly tech savvy and provided us countless memories. How is that not legendary status. Just cuz you don't like the language? That's rediculous. It's legendary, nuff talk.

[@NexusGamingRadical]

Well said to be honest.

[@lostsauce0]

Did you know that Java runs on over 3 billion devices?!?

[@chpsilva]

All koolkids must mock oldfart Java, you know.

[@dave4148]

The marketing was legendary, not the technology

[@raianmr2843]

You mean legendary marketing, not technology lmao. Sun and Oracle have spent tens of billions of dollars behind Java's advertising alone. Java is the prime example of "fake it till you make it". But prolly the worst part of the story is that this isn't even the reason Java blew up. C++ was just so bad and people were just so fed up with the platform APIs that they practically settled for the next worst thing.

[@vinterskugge907]

Java was the first GC language that went mainstream. Everyone was fed up with segfaults using C/C++ in the nineties, so that was the main reason it became popular IMO. Not the cross-platform thing. It was, indeed, one of the best products of 1995!

[@Ryuujin1024]

It replaced segfaults with null pointer exceptions. Thankfully other JVM languages Kotlin/Scala/etc. fixed that but still one heck of an oversight to not have that in the typesystem. Java as a platform JVM, cross platform, is still a great thing.

[@vinterskugge907]

@@Ryuujin1024 To be fair, null pointers are a thing in C too. So Java removed segfaults, but as you state, didn't fix null pointers. Solutions are on their way though, in just a few short years String! in Java will mean a String that cannot be null.

[@paulrei00]

​@@Ryuujin1024 NullPointerException and OutOfMemoryException was a biggest pain in the ass for everyone who was coding for J2ME platform.

[@sacredgeometry]

And its a fucking shit show. So imagine how bad working on C/C++ projects in the 90s was.

[@taylankammer]

It's genuinely a very good language to this day IMO. I've been using it professional for about 5 years now for Android dev, meaning I'm stuck with Java 11 plus whatever Android adds from newer language features, and even with that I'm very very happy with Java as a language. This comes from a programming language snob who loves Lisp, so, no, it's not from not knowing what other languages have to offer. I've looked into Kotlin, and although null safety is very good on paper, I'm not sure how well it translates to avoiding bugs in the end of the day. The majority of NPEs in my experience stem from deeper issues, not simply "oopsie, I didn't realize this value could be null here and forgot to check." It's more like "why the heck is this nullable value null in this particular code-path; it's only allowed to be null under different circumstances." Also: checked exceptions. I'll never understand why this feature didn't catch on. Kotlin literally went and removed it.

[@kabukitheater9046]

JAVA EE is now JAKARTA EE. makes sense coz all of these are places in indonesia

[@stefanms8803]

It’s weird to refer to 2 places as “all of these places”. “All” makes sense if we’re talking about at least 3.

[@thavrisco1632]

@@stefanms8803be open to it

[@gabrielevan148]

@@stefanms8803 there's project lombok iirc

[@raianmr2843]

​@@stefanms8803🤓

[@batatanna]

​@@stefanms8803the sentence is grammatically correct tho

[@thingsiplay]

The technology is legendary, not the language itself. Java was an important part of the web before JavaScript existed.

[@khangle6872]

Nah, PHP was out before java. And in web specifically nothing had more impact than PHP back in the day, love it or hate it. Java was legendary for other things. Most of cell phone back then run on java. Most games on those run Java, including the legendary Nokia Snake game. Desktop apps use Java, even game use Java

[@thingsiplay]

@@khangle6872 PHP and Java had a complete different use case and does not compare. Java on the web was basically was the rich interactive enhancements of static websites. Before Flash and JavaScript. That is something PHP could not do, because it was server side, not browser side used. Most people never knew about PHP, but they knew and used Java applets directly. And if we take the other desktop and mobile phone clients into account, then it's clear how revolutionary Java was back then. It deserves the tag legendary.

[@heroe1486]

​​@@khangle6872 and they made sure you know those mobile games were using Java, I knew about Java before knowing what a programming language was

[@_DT_]

@@heroe1486 over 3 billion devices

[@homelessrobot]

java was an important part of the web long after javascript existed. For the longest time the way you did anything that looked at all like a 'web app' was a java applet or activeX. Imagine, running completely unisolated visual basic programs, by default, whenever they were embedded into a web page you happen upon.

[@AnthonyBullard]

I was part of the early Angular community (named the 0.10.11 release). Angular the name came from the angle brackets used in HTML tags. It's original tagline was something like "HTML with superpowers". The logo was chosen from a community competition and was open. Originally it was just the text in black on a yellow banner.

[@AnthonyBullard]

I'm sure Misko will fact check me if he sees this, but this is my memory of 12 years ago 😂

[@lostsauce0]

Simpler times

[@pixelsam123]

Writing HasThisTypePatternTriedToSneakInSomeGenericOrParameterizedTypePatternMatchingStuffAnywhereVisitor is indeed dynamic, revolutionary, lively, fun!

[@raianmr2843]

😂

[@WedgeTalon]

Let's be honest, "I named X" is EXACTLY what a Product Manager who did the bare minimum to contribute would say.

[@jeffwhite3867]

So, that includes Elon Musk then....

[@PhilipAlexanderHassialis]

The fact that so many years after its primary inception the language powers on huge swathes of the corporate enterprise sector should justify its legendary status. The language is used *everywhere*. From in house stuff for many corporations to famous "public" applications like e.g. LinkedIn. You may not like Java, its cadence, its design by committee, its complexity, all the ecosystem that moves at a glacial pace. But its more than certain you HAVE used it in one way or another - even if you have never used an old school mobile or an Android one.

[@FatDawlf]

Man I sure love programming in silkscript

[@Z3rgatul]

Why so much hate on Java? It was revolutionary when it came in 1995. Let see how much hate your favorite languages (Rust, Go, Python and so on) will have in 25 years? Will they even survive for so long? 🤣

[@YumekuiNeru]

python is older than java so there is that

[@gh0stcassette]

Java was a very technologically impressive programming language, the JVM was a great idea for easy cross-platform support and it probably helped mainstream garbage-collected languages. I just hate the syntax, it's ugly and it feels un-ergonomic to be forced to use object oriented patterns for Literally Everything. If I had to Interact with any Java code today, I would Desperately hope I could write in Kotlin or Scala instead, since they all compile to JVM bytecode and can use Java libraries.

[@heroe1486]

Dude acting like Python wasn't 4 years older

[@Z3rgatul]

@@heroe1486 who cares about exact date when python was released only the year when python became mainstream language matters

[@acopier]

@@Z3rgatul it basically became relevant when google chose it

[@jamesm4957]

Imagine if Silk was picked, we will got a SilkScript today

[@ThePrimeTimeagen]

silky smooth script

[@soumen_pradhan]

Actually fits, since it's related to web.

[@VivekYadav-ds8oz]

we might've had a different name for JS then, because this doesn't roll off the tongue.

[@jomager7217]

Some studies prove that java developers are the most happy ones! I think it‘s a beautyful language by the way.

[@JamesMurphy1984]

It's because older java apps just work even on newer VMs and the fact that the Java community is just second to none. There's never any major dramas.

[@JamesMurphy1984]

Java. It's still here nearly 30 years later. Works everywhere STILL. Is very fast for a compiled language and is still an easier language to learn than it's sister language like Scala or Groovy and it's the 4th most popular language. STILL. Definitely deserves title of Legendary...

[@ruanpingshan]

Considering how much effort companies normally put into coming up with good names, how is it that there's a communication app called DISCORD?

[@bjbegui]

Modern java is super fun... loving it

[@mjovanc]

You mean Kotlin?

[@bjbegui]

@@mjovanc no....eww

[@VictorMartinez-zf6dt]

It's easy to forget, but at the time Java was such a big deal that it warranted all that praise. Remember that at the time, the only real alternatives were C++ and Smalltalk

[@puspo-in]

java is the name for an island located in indonesia, the name also called for tribe, and the languange. the java language is hard

[@ruanpingshan]

We were taught in middle school that it was called Java because the programmers were drinking coffee from Java when they came up with the idea.

[@raianmr2843]

That was the marketing version of the story they went with.

[@thomasrichards8055]

Silk, the programming language that would later pave the way for the armies of SilkScript developers…

[@Titousensei]

I don't understand all the hate for Java. It's a decent language that gets a lot of things right. It has some issues, but it's far from the worst language I worked with.

[@lashlarue7924]

Same. All the complaints about boilerplate are overblown. It's cross platform, relatively easy to learn, and it still runs everywhere. Maybe there might be better alternatives today, but you could still make a strong case for it even now (i.e. BigDecimal).

[@VasiliSyrakis]

There are only two hard things in Computer Science: cache invalidation and naming things. -- Phil Karlton

[@catocall7323]

A cup of java was a hip way to say coffee in the 90's

[@Jarikraider]

Silk would've been a pretty fancy name ngl

[@daedalus5070]

"Legendary" == "Infamous"

[@mfinixone1417]

The last part when he was talking about the razor, that actually describes me

[@Noturnus1976]

I am a Java/javascript developer and I avoid using javascript when I can. Java is much better to debug/refactor. The static typing is amazing when you are creating a non Hello World app

[@ivanmaglica264]

Anything cool, unique and easy over time with extensive use becomes dull, uninteresting and mind numbingly complicated. If you try to keep it up, you will get a blow-back of "this is no longer X that we learned and loved"

[@laughingvampire7555]

I remember reading in 1999 that the name came because Gosling and the rest were frequenting a coffee shop named Java something, and that is why the name Java and the logo was a cup of coffee.

[@demolazer]

I also read this a long time ago, that it had something to do with the name of the coffee they were drinking at the time.

[@kevinlkoehler]

The coffee shop at The Oaks Shopping center Cupertino was called The Coffee Society, don't know if it's an inspiration, but a lot of coders used to hang out there. The Peppermill was a restaurant across the street in the Apple parking lot.

[@martinpata2899]

Java is legendary

[@ThePrimeTimeagen]

and fun

[@danvilela]

and efficient! @@ThePrimeTimeagen

[@murilovieira2785]

​@@ThePrimeTimeagensure

[@infrofl6557]

69 bajillion devices run Silk

[@kaotiskhund]

interface Technology { void OOP(); } abstract class Java implements Technology { @Override public void OOP(){ System.out.println("Legendary"); } }

[@glommeryt]

Java is legendary. Like the legend of the Baba Yaga

[@thingsiplay]

I played the Baba Yaga extension for Tomb Raider.

[@XDarkGreyX]

Primewife carrying all of Netflix on her back

[@zeppelinmexicano]

Best name ever for all coffee lovers, and I'm surprised not to hear one word about coffee. Think about that logo with the steam rising from the hot cup. Beautiful. I don't know how the word java became associated with coffee expect maybe coffee from Java was all the rage at one time. I always assumed it was Colombian that was the rage.

[@NickRabbott]

People love to hate Java nowadays, that doesn't trump the fact that it was revolutionary for the time. It pioneered garbage collection and platform independence, just to name a couple features that the modern programming languages we all love have today.

[@laughingvampire7555]

I used HotJava in a Solaris machine, obviously since it was a Sun Microsystems machine it had all the bells and whistles and HotJava was interesting because it was a browser written in Java but also was it was shitty, very slow. It also had the famous CDE (common desktop environment) and other desktops.

[@Justanoobcoder]

2:35 if Java was named Silk, we would have a language named SilkScript

[@snorman1911]

I did Java for 10 years and manage a Java dev team. Honest opinion, Java is OK but does things a bit clunky. The worst part though is the insufferable community, who will be offended that you asked for docs for their library and tell you that question was answered on the mailing list last year. My first experience with Java devs in the early 2000s was basically people sniffing their own farts out of wine glasses.

[@GreedoShot]

Java is legendary, all my favorite web games in the 90s were made with it

[@defnlife1683]

It’s insane that one of the designers Guy Steel also codeveloped scheme, and that two of the languages that harm us emotionally were almost minimalist lisps (java and javascript)

[@nooalovern]

Imagine if Svelte was called Silk. We would live in a better world. How easy it would be to convince a “non dev” to shut up about react and just trust your word. But hey, here we are.

[@slice6298]

As to 10 best products of 1995 Java is number 7 Number 4 is condoms Number 6 is a bike Java is lower than condoms and a bike lol

[@deathlife2414]

The hardest problem in programming is naming the one who come with that is a true genius philosopher

[@apina2]

The name Polese is so funny soundin' 😀

[@lepingouindefeu]

Yeah my dislexic butt kept reading it as Polonese 😅

[@cejannuzi]

We would always go make coffee while waiting for it to load and start working.

[@kobibr9362]

Times magazine was the twitter of the 90s. You would cared if that that piece of paper said it. Things have changed. I haven’t touched a piece of paper in 6 months.

[@Telhias]

I know only who for sure did not name Java - the lady claiming to have named it. I am sorry but throwing a random list of meaningless adjectives is a huge red flag. Moreover it was commonly agreed to be a brainstorming meeting, yet she described Java as if she spent hours to carefully engineer the perfect word. That is not how brainstorming works. In brainstorming, when a cool idea comes to some mind, it gets thrown around then gets accepted/rejected/thrown on the maybe pile. There is no careful consideration and engineering involved. That is the exact opposite of brainstorming.

[@k98killer]

Should fork Java and call it TrashLang. It's a double entendre: it is garbage collected, and it's literally just a copy of Java.

[@Sakrosankt-Bierstube]

Silk would have been a smooth name... pun intended.

[@jmguillemette]

The real question is why is JavaScript call JavaScript when it came after Java and had nothing to do with Java at all! - forever to be the bain of all Java Developers

[@gloowacz]

Legendary can also be interpreted as "infamous", so it still fits very well.

[@thom1218]

Oak was taken? Too bad that wasn't a strong enough hint that they should have gone with "J"oak. When every "applet" ran like a lobotomized snail, you still get people today trying to "flex" their Java performance skillz... yeah, Joak is perfect.

[@elliottmarshall1424]

Until they added the auto wrapper/unwrapped to primitives I didn't have any issues with java. But every time I use typescript I always think, this is looking like java

[@raianmr2843]

ts is slowly becoming more like modern c# (superficially ofc) imo

[@lucass8119]

@@raianmr2843 At this point just abandon Javascript on web browsers for C#. Realistically the microsoft stigma will stop this from happening, but I can dream.

[@k98killer]

Know what else is legendary? Satan. I therefore conclude that it is reasonable to use the term to describe Java.

[@temper8281]

rust in 30 years time

[@farisfaikar_r]

You may have summoned some Javanese people in the comment section lol

[@SeanCallahan52]

I made a project for our company that submits data removal requests to data brokers (with some noice sauce) and called it WipeIt because it "gets rid of that shit".

[@pif5023]

So Java was chosen as a retort to the phrase “[…] like Java! It could never work” “You know Chris, I do happen to like the word Java!” Kekw

[@--zero]

named by the powers of NINETIES BRAINSTORMING.

[@goblinjedly9528]

Java is legendary. First GC (now every other langauge has it), first JIT, first doing a VM. Blabal Prime can't do shit and is talking shit.

[@ryanleemartin7758]

In the 90's, Java was cool! But like almost all things cool, they become uncool.

[@trondenver5017]

I’ve heard way worse Alex jones imitations. Let em rip.

[@ThePrimeTimeagen]

so... you are saying there is a chance?

[@amanuel2135]

Literally got a Gillette ad at the end wtf

[@cherryjayhawk4845]

As a Javanese I like Java.

[@pedaganggorengan8847]

As a Jawir, I hate Java.

[@keenoogodlike]

I thought it was the name of legacy coffee so they use coffee logo.

[@octavian08b]

WebDance, Neon - Cyberpunk vibes

[@demolazer]

Thinking about it, the name of a language is actually rather important these days. With so many around, it could be the sole difference between a casual googler clicking on your language's page or another.

[@boy_deploy]

Java was so legendary so Microsoft copies. Wiki: Visual J++ is Microsoft's discontinued implementation of Java. Syntax, keywords, and grammatical conventions were the same as Java's. It was introduced in 1996 and discontinued in January 2004, replaced to a certain extent by J# and C#.

[@mattymerr701]

It's more (in)famous

[@seanmills3502]

Since you often put milk in java, it is safe to call Java the language LEGENDAIRY. ☕🥛

[@mvargasmoran]

what the hell is falcor? don't mess with neverending story lore

[@nicolaslopeza2251]

What I like to do is think what would be of JavaScript if Java was called something else. WebDancerScript, SilkScript, LinguaJavaScript. Things could get really funny

[@octavioavila6548]

They should have called it Pen15

[@Omnifarious0]

Java was named by committee. Sounds about right.

[@stewiebrown1520]

Jawa Moto - only java that is fun

[@cmelgarejo]

Imagine java called RUBY. Im pretty sure there's a universe where this is a fact

[@cinemaspins2947]

It wasn't the most popular language for many years?

[@MrAlanCristhian]

Yes, a lot of people hates java now. But it was amazing on 1995.

[@bariole]

Receiving strong "Java 's bad" vibes..

[@AjinkyaBhushan]

fun fact: Java still runs on 3 billion devices

[@bartech101]

From all proposed names Java looks like a great name 😂😂😂

[@JLarky]

name "Angular" is a joke about html tags using angle brackets :) and the logo is an A tag

[@jl_117]

thank goodness it wasn’t called Oak or Greentalk

[@aryabp]

Ada Indonesia Coyy

[@SmileyJack.]

03:17 didn't want anything with 'net'

[@mattrs1]

Is java legendary? Yes Is java impressive by today standards? No Java is the smells like teen spirit of programming. Legendary for its time and for what it enabled, but far from the best exponent (black hole sun was a waaay better grunge song but it's relevancy isn't as high as slts)

[@sangrambarge9742]

Java IS Legendary

[@marcello4258]

Barney didn’t call it legendary .. true Story

[@aabhishek4911]

Dude your whole company uses Java lol . How is it not legendary !

[@McHorsesCreations]

If they called Java Silk, we would have SilkScript.

[@kamertonaudiophileplayer847]

I use the Silk browser.

[@wartab]

This KZbinr didn't say who he is at the end, I'm lost.

[@rytis-codes]

Java is still the best language! Name a better one, I’ll wait. C++ is the close second.

[@joerad4722]

In another timeline.... Java is called Ruby AND Ruby is called Java Wow...

[@RyanTipps]

Java really is a good name tho

[@chrisnicey]

Because Oak might because some trademarks issues.

[@Mitch_Crane]

Bunch of coffee addicts with all their beans and jars and abstract double short low fat no foam latte factories

[@geomorillo]

my mini framework i named it prestomvc lol ,😂😂😂