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Comment by rantingdemon | Hacker News Reader

I think this is my first post on HN, but have been a long time lurker.

That aside. Your point around ecosystems is interesting to me. As a wannabee coder I'm always trying new things. Most of my code was in PowerShell although I did do a bit of C++ and Delphi in school.

I have been dabbling with dotnet core (C#) and Python the last couple of years.

I tried to get into Java a bit, but to be frank the learning curve to go from start to consuming a REST service was just way too hard. I couldn't understand the difference between when I should be using JavaEE, JavaSE, spring boot, spring framework etc. I gave up after two days.

In contrast Python is just so easy. And if I want something more robust I'll rather go to dotnet.

Go is on my list as it seems to offer a lot of what I want, and although there are some apparently weird things in it I think i can be productive with it for some basic business logic within a couple of days.

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I am using Java occasionally, there isn't any special learning curve if you know basic syntax. Same as in Python you don't start with Jdango and virtual environments, you shouldn't start using Java with Spring Boot/Spring.

Google library you need "java http client"

https://openjdk.org/groups/net/httpclient/intro.html - it doesn't look complicated.

First example is using "reactive-streams", you don't have to use that syntax if you aren't familiar (same as in Python there are new features, which beginners may learn later), other examples strait forward.

If library you need doesn't exist in standard library, download jar, add it your `classpath` and use.

Skip any tutorials which are using Spring (unless you want to learn Spring). If you want to write more advanced Java code, learn about [Maven](https://maven.apache.org/)

Same thing about JavaEE/JavaSE, if you google about it, you will find that you may use any, there are different libraries included in installation, it doesn't mean you can't add them later.

You sound like you'd enjoy TypeScript with NodeJS. Low learning curve. Highly productive. Massively versatile ecosystem. You can be functional or OO. And of course, the type system, which will feel similar to C#. It's very fast and obviously JS being the language of the web is a natural benefit too.

This is the way. Being able to make a website, PWA, cross-platform desktop app with Tauri, mobile app with RN / Quasar / Svelte Native / Cordova, or a standalone cross-platform executable with Deno is invaluable. Edge functions / cloudflare workers / Deno deploy, or even embedded js runtimes are all first class. As a typescript dev I feel like I can do almost anything, and UI is cake with Svelte and the other great web ui frameworks around JS. Not to mention the incredible ecosystem and the top-tier DX with PNPM and Vite. I feel spoiled when the possibilities are limitless and the tooling / ecosystem has it all!

For starting with TypeScript today, I’d almost certainly recommend trying Deno before Node. It’s much closer to standard web APIs, the tooling story is “you don’t need any until you know you do”. And it doesn’t have a zillion footguns like CJS/ESM interop, or different stream APIs, or complex package.json configs.

Yes this is an excellent example of different cultures and ecosystems.

In Python a library like requests is a thin abstraction over http calls it is very easy to understand what is going on and get started.

In Java, there is a tendency to wrap everything so it fits with a framework and is super generic and configurable. For example look at the Feign library.

Each approach has its pro's and cons, but knowing both of them good as it allows you to pick the right solution for different use cases.

About getting into java: i'd recommend using Spring Boot. I provides a low abstraction http client (RestTemplate) that allows for straightforward calls to REST services.

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