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Comment by gotofritz | Hacker News Reader

What a crap, supercilious comment. Yes laypeople want functioning doors, but this is not an article for laypeople, it's an article for engineers. What we want are tools that allow us to build performant, maintainable, reliable code.

Besides, if all you do is to fix a door than you may be right. But we build entire tower blocks, with doors, windows, elevators, ventilation systems, structures able to hold up tons of material, and all the rest. Your screwdriver metaphor may be good go way to score a cheap point with strangers on an internet forum, but not much besides.

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I used Angular Material to build a website. I dunno if you've ever been to the Angular Material website *https://material.angularjs.org/latest/), but check it out if you haven't. You see that nifty looking navigation bar on the left? You can't actually build that using Angular Material given all those wonderful components they list there. There are entire blog posts created so you can make a similar looking navigation menu [1][2]. There are so many things missing or incomplete in this framework that you'll only realize when you try and build a "real" application with it. Guess what? Angular Material is dead. All the developers decided to start over with Angular Material 2 because there's a new screwdriver brand in town: Angular 2. Yay for the people who just want functional doors.

[1] http://blog.vizuri.com/creating-your-own-angular-material-na... [2] http://stackoverflow.com/questions/28389671/create-a-menu-li...

Let's talk about Material Design Lite. Go check that website, especially the components page (https://getmdl.io/components/index.html). It's really nice and responsive, try changing the size of your browser window and see how the navigation bar collapses to the top. Damn this looks like a great framework, I'd like to do the same thing in my app. Imaging the surprise when you can't actually do that using the framework out-of-the-box. Oh by the way, forget about MDL, all the developers have moved on to Material Components for the Web (https://github.com/material-components/material-components-w...). So much for the guys who just want to hang a door, there's a new brand of screwdrivers on the block.

It would be great if the so-called "engineers" could spend some more time creating a complete toolbox instead of reinventing new screwdrivers every month.

In my experience, this is a much bigger problem in web programming than elsewhere. Take the JVM, for example, since it's the subject of the article- it's been around for decades and while things have changed, you can still pretty just just keep using whatever you're using without fear of the developers jumping ship for something shiny.

Indeed. Also, in more sane / stable areas of the industry, the code doesn't rot so fast. Java is relatively backwards compatible down to version 1.5 or so. In Common Lisp world, the code written more than years ago works perfectly fine without need for any change.

I think I'm in love.

You're forgetting that this is every web developer's dream. To always keep learning new frameworks (to do the same fucking thing) over and over.

I get that this is the easy way to see it from the outside, but:

- You don't have to learn every new framework. Google has 10k+ Angular 1 projects, this stuff doesn't go away after hitting critical mass.

- This constant iteration has lead to multiple production-ready UI paradigms that were just relegated to FP research. Try using Angular 1 or vanilla React, and then do something with vanilla Android. Or GTK+. Do we want GTK to be our baseline for UI work? Qt is nicer, but it's definitely playing catch-up.

You can poke fun, but there's a reason everyone opts for things like Electron. It's the most satisfying way to build frontends for a lot of people.

> Everyone opts for electron

And I’m just sitting here, using https://github.com/ReactiveX/RxJavaFX

Is JavaFX okay? Or maybe even good? What's wrong with it? (Not polished enough, not maintained enough? Not updated fast enough?) RxJava seems pretty okay.

Seems perfectly fine for building desktop applications in Java (which is what I've been doing for the last 1.5 year at my $dayjob).

Java has problems on OS X and Linux. It is not truly cross-platform like Electron is.

Don't know about the OS X problems much, but on Linux it's workable with FX (our product is actually used on both Windows and Linux). OTOH, Electron achieves its portability by shipping the whole Chromium browser with your application...

There is actually one issue JavaFX has on Linux: It uses Gtk to determine renderscale, so it can’t handle HiDPI at all (Gtk only scales in integer amounts, so everything is either 96dpi or 192dpi)

Could you talk a little bit about these problems? I was not aware of any serious issues on non-Windows platform, and would like to hear about them. As Java/Kotlin is generally my go-to language for making things in my off time, that would be helpful to know about.

Off the top of my head: misses some UI elements / widget types (spinner / numeric entry). UI bindings require a lot of manual converters instead of doing conversions that p.e. WPF does out-of-the-box (like double to string when using a text box; principle of least surprise).

And (the worst) it's not conceptually compatible to the model classes (abstract tree model) that almost every UI framework (including Swing) provides. Instead, tree nodes have to be manually instantiated).

> misses spinner

https://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/javafx/api/javafx/scene/con...

> UI bindings require a lot of manual converters instead of doing conversions that p.e. WPF does out-of-the-box (like double to string when using a text box; principle of least surprise).

You can use String.valueOf, but usually don’t want to do that. And how do you want to represent the float? With Scientific notation, Engineering notation, or purely decimal? This is not simple.

> And (the worst) it's not conceptually compatible to the model classes (abstract tree model) that almost every UI framework (including Swing) provides. Instead, tree nodes have to be manually instantiated).

Or you use the FXML bindings for creating them from XML?

The constant iteration has definitely led to more production ready UI platforms. But once they are in production they are largely abandoned in favour of "shiny new thing 2.0". The rate of change on the web development side is simply too fast to keep up with especially with regards to tooling.

> You can poke fun, but there's a reason everyone opts for things like Electron. It's the most satisfying way to build frontends for a lot of people.

I'm not convinced it's particularly good reasons. I think ignorance of native GUI coding and the old, "When all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail" mentality has a whole lot to do with it.

Wouldn't really say that I am seeing it from the outside. Have done some web frontend projects last couple of years and also used Electron for a project. Starting an Angular 1 project now is comparable to doing Windows desktop applications in MFC, and Angular 1 is what, 6 years old?

And the only satisfying thing about Electron, is hitting package and getting three platform-specific binaries. Otherwise, it is still web frontend development. In contrast, I have had the pleasure of doing desktop development in Qt and WPF, which was quite enjoyable (and the ecosystem has not changed a lot since I left it years ago).

Also, MVC and MVVM were UI paradigms before web frontend development. And I am quite sure I heard about ReactiveExtensions before Facebook React.

Yes, vanilla Android is terrible.

The primary reason to learn new web framework all the time is that current are still not quite there yet. It needs more maturation till it can stabilize into something good enough.

"Why would you want a 2017 car? I have a Model T here that does the exact same thing"

It's a free and open source project and you're still complaining. And browsers and the web, JS and a lot of things changed between Angular 1 and Angular 2.

Yes, Google could have handled those projects better, they could have put up big warning signs that they are "deprecated".

I think it was a good move to recognize how unmaintainable things (can quickly and usually) become with angular1 (or with anything that is a mess of a hundred semi-external JS libraries), hence TypeScript.

Maybe marking them deprecated when they're launched?

So we've moved past the 'forever in beta' phase to the 'deprecated at launch' phase?

Man I smelled that "horrendous complexity" odor on Angular a mile away. Made me glad I can do mostly backend work.

You're not wrong. I am an Angular 1 dev who's in the process of moving to Angular 2 and even that is an up-hill battle. However, I think it's about picking the right tool for the job in that the batteries-included / opinionated nature of Angular is great for once you start scaling a team AND/OR you have a product that you need to keep shippable at all times.

I've done a few projects with Angular Material, and I actually ran into that exact same issue of trying to re-create the documentation's sidebar, only to realize the components weren't in the framework.

> Guess what? Angular Material is dead. All the developers decided to start over with Angular Material 2 because there's a new screwdriver brand in town: Angular 2.

I think an important lesson from this is to be careful about the tools you use. If a particular company puts out great tools but changes them in incompatible ways, you might end up having to go back and rehang a lot of doors.

>What we want are tools that allow us to build performant, maintainable, reliable code.

Virtually any mainstream language is capable of building performant, maintainable, reliable code. Virtually no developers are capable of creating performant, maintainable, reliable code. After decades in the industry and generations of new whizbang tools, libraries, and languages I've come to terms with the fact that the problem is "us." I've seen exactly one significant sized application keep those 3 qualifications for more than a couple of years. Once all the original core developers on the project moved on, it was less than a year before the code base was a total mess.

I think what you're really asking for is a tool that forces you to build performant, maintainable, reliable code. I'm not sure that's entirely possible until we get AI writing and maintaining its own code. Humans suck.

Not to put words in the parent's mouth, but I think he is suggesting that we (developers) should spend less time creating / analyzing / debating / choosing frameworks and more time thinking about actual end user functionality.

If this is what parent meant, than that's true - we do bicker too much about it in the industry (I'm guilty of it too). Discussions about tools are important, but ultimately what's important is what those tools are used to build.

When you're building a 'tower', what is more important? The strange new hammers and screwdrivers you're using, or the architecture, algorithms and data structures?

Please don't compare a programming language to a hammer. They're not similar in complexity, and it makes a really bad metaphor. Besides, unless you write entire applications in assembler, you DO care about programming languages.

I completely agree. Bricks would be a better metaphor and still completely contrived. And turns out, you can't build skyscrapers without concrete and steel :)

And just to be pedantic: When I bought my first SwissTools Insider[1], I realized that it's actually still possible to innovate in screwdriver design. That doesn't make them better for every task, but hey, that's the way it is.

[1]: http://www.pbswisstools.com/de/werkzeuge/quality-hand-tools/...

They are similar in outcome.

Do u care about what language Amazon uses to write S3? Do u believe it is the language that make S3 succeed, or fail?

Even as a programmer, as to the other services I am calling, things I do care about involving their stability and correctness that affecting my work. I care shit about what how they write their service underneath, may it be cool or dumb.

If we're going to insist on the carpentry tools metaphor ... hammer vs nailgun; a hammer can do everything a nailgun can do and more ... but if you're banging together a timber-frame for a house the nailgun will let you get through the task far far more quickly. If you're running a business, and time is money, which tool would you want your carpenters using for this task?

If I'm running a business that lets say develops an ecommerce platform I won't be too impressed if my developers are using assembler. Java good, but if Scala gives them an edge and cuts my costs so much the better!

Yeah, so choose what works best for u, not assuming the same thing for others without understanding the specific problems they are trying to solve. Maybe they need a hammer, not a nail gun, because they work in specific environment that don't have sufficient power supply? or for the work they are doing, hammer is good enough, it is better for them to invest elsewhere.

I'm kind of making the point that in many environments you'll need both? A nailgun (battery or gas powered) for the "bulk" jobs and a hammer for the finer work. I can't imagine anyone being effective in Scala without first having a good knowledge of Java. Or at least without having Java expertise near to hand.

I used to think so too, but at work I've met programmers who code in Scala without having learned Java first, and it's enlightening. They are proficient in Scala. Whenever they touch Java code, they are upset that the niceties and modern features of Scala aren't there -- whatever we thought was reasonable in Java or "not mainstream" in Scala are exactly the opposite to them. "Why do I have to write all this needless code in Java?", they ask (for example), nicely countering the common but unwarranted notion that Java's verbosity somehow makes code more understandable to regular joes.

It's enlightening to me because a lot of what we consider "hard" or "too academic" is actually our own prejudices speaking. Of course it looks like that to us, coming from Java, but try talking to someone who learned Scala first :)

I also find it encouraging. Maybe some day we will be able to finally take advantage of the JVM without the weight of Java-the-language.

You've met programmers who know scala but not java but tell me this: Were they in an environment without java expertise "to hand"? To me scala is more akin to a skin over java. Particularly when using 3p libraries that were written in java (this ecosystem is one of scala's key advantages over other fucntionalesque programming environments). When you work with scala you'll always need some java guys nearby to deal with the "nitty gritty" details.

No, that's precisely the thing -- I've met programmers who learned Scala as their first language for the JVM (some guys I'm thinking about coded in C and PHP before that), they are pretty proficient, and they absolutely do NOT need Java programmers "at hand". It's interesting that they "get" Scala; they don't try to use it as if it was Java++ (in my experience, this attitude you describe that Scala is merely a "skin" over Java is mostly due to prior knowledge of Java). When these people eventually need to learn some Java, they do so on their own -- and curse the language!

I think we're starting to see a new phenomenon: people who don't start on the JVM with Java. It's interesting because it shows (in my opinion) that the whole "Scala is too difficult" thing was mostly a misconception. What it was truly all about was: it's hard to give up old ways of thinking :)

I honestly can't see the point in scala if you're not integrating with the the javaverse ... I'd have thought you'd be far better off cutting a clean break and using a "proper" functional language like Haskell or Go

Obviously, one big draw of Scala is that it can interoperate with Java and take advantage of existing libraries. But that's a far cry from saying it's mostly a wrapper around Java. New code, including libraries, should be written entirely in Scala. The JVM is itself a valuable target, regardless of Java-the-language.

That said, I love Haskell and would definitely enjoy using it at work, but it's a no go for "political" reasons, which is sort of reasonable even if disappointing. Scala scares management way less than Haskell!

I don't personally care what S3 is built using, but that doesn't mean the people who built S3 shouldn't care. Java, Scala, etc. are all tools with different strengths and weaknesses. Use the best tool for the job, considering the experience and capabilities of the team you have.

Just because end users don't care about the language used to implement S3 doesn't mean the developers at Amazon don't care.

_I_ don't care what they use to write their platform, because it's a black box to me. But _they_ care and spend a lot of time debating it, and that's when discussions like the one in the article are important and shouldn't be dismissed.

> unless you write entire applications in assembler, you DO care about programming languages.

That's true, but we've been in the region of diminishing returns for programming languages (I'm not talking about runtimes) for a long, long time now. To go back to the (bad?) tools metaphor, it's like saying that unless you're using nothing but your fingers, you DO care about tools. Well, yeah, but once you have a decent screwdriver, innovation in screwdriver technology -- short of a revolution -- is likely to yield diminishing returns on investment, especially as the cost of adoption remains high. Switching from, say, Java to Scala is not much cheaper (if at all) than switching from, say, assmebly language to FORTRAN or C. This does mean that the effort spent on switching languages (or screwdrivers) should decline.

Just cause one thing is more important than another, doesn't mean the other thing is unimportant. You appear to be arguing against discussing tools, because they aren't as important as other things.

Modern skyscrapers would certainly not be reasonable to build without "strange new hammers and screwdrivers" (read: tower cranes, super-powered concrete pumps, etc).

Algorithms and data structures will be mostly the same regardless of what language you use.

Architecture will generally not be. Scala and Java encourage building applications in different ways. That doesn't mean one is better than the other (though I'd argue you could make that claim), but some problem domains are better modeled with Scala, and likely some with Java. And some programmers work better tending toward a pure, immutable, functional style, while others work better with OO, side effects, and mutable data.

While choice of language/framework may not be as important as many other choices you need to make when building an application, but it's not something that should be dismissed as irrelevant, either.

The point is that you have to care about your tools and know them really really well if you want to be able to build good software.

That's something that holds across all fields of engineering and art.

> Your screwdriver metaphor may be good go way to score a cheap point with strangers on an internet forum, but not much besides.

The screwdriver analogy is right on a lot of levels. Is it so hard to accept that software developers is not some unique snowflake position that cannot be compared to any other job?

I thought it was a very pertinent comment tbh. Done in a tongue in check way, but definitely applicable to "engineers"

Plus, we have to pad our rèsumès so we can move on to another job before anyone realizes how bad this pile of horse-dookey is and we have to figure out how to maintain it.

Minor nit: résumés. I generally need to look it up myself.

Don't tell me, tell the Android spell checker. That was it's suggestion. :-)

But for a sufficiently expert programmer Java and Scala are as different as two brands of screwdriver.

Not really at all. A sufficiently expert programmer may be able to switch between Java and Scala with the same ease of switching between brands of screwdriver. But that same programmer would certainly not use Java and Scala in the same ways, as they would with two different brands of screwdriver.

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