Why is the offical Java website so outdated? | Hacker News Reader

Why is the offical Java website so outdated?

java.com

17 pointsLukesys9 comments

Not all sites need to be constantly changing and being redone when they just need to do one thing well. Although generally if you want your product taken seriously you need to at least make sure it doesn't look like a scam site of prior times.

Now for a bit of Oracle ranting:

Oracle is the retirement home for software and hardware products. Sad because while Oracle could be kinda ruthless back in the day, they did produce some one of the best databases during the time. Now everything they do is just a nightmare of complexity, cost and failure.

Java and MySql both were brought into Oracle so Oracle could remove competition and reduce the effectiveness of open source, no matter what their press releases say. Every action they have taken has been to wall things off, stop innovation and to hurt the community around those tools. So the site not being updated is their hint of we don't care, we are just here for the money and lawsuits.

Funny enough people thought this would be what Microsoft would do since it has purchased some open source companies too. However, so far they seem to be showing quite the opposite approach which is refreshing.

Java is more "open source" than it ever has been, even more than before Sun was acquired by Oracle.

It's not just outdated. It has the air of a security "download now!" scam site.

This is the real issue. Other commentors saying that not ever website needs to be constantly redesigned is true, but the rest of the web has been redesigned around it. The Java website is losing its legitimacy (however unfairly) because of the continuing march of website design.

I’d bet there’s some kind of evolutionary reason baked into us that actually does “require” updates to sources of information like websites, as a signal of vitality and upkeep, currency and cultural acceptability. Whether Java the product actually fulfills those qualities is for another thread.

My friend had to download java last weekend and he couldn't find the website. I kept telling him to google java download but he thought it was a scam. I can't blame him.

This is a site for end users, and end users aren't their target market, especially since NPAPI browser plugins have been dead since ~2018. Oracle's Java market is much more on the server/back-end, and we don't (usually) need a shiny website to know "Do I have Java?"

Perhaps it's foreshadowing for Java GUIs.

Some websites are designed to be simplistic and minimal such as Berkshire and Hathaway's website and I completely get that. But Oracle have not updated the look/design of the Java download website for many years and it just looks terrible. Thoughts?

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