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gabereiser

Google invented Go.

Netflix uses Java and Rust and Go.

Twitter used to use Scala.

GitHub uses Ruby on Rails.

EpicGames uses C++.

Instagram uses Python.

Everybody uses something.

Now, if you have building on top of your organizations previous 10 years of engineering, you’re probably going to be writing Java and it’s probably going to be complicated. I’ve been there. I wrote Java for 15 years. I won’t anymore. I’m in love with the simplicity and speed of Golang. I’m in love with the robustness and correctness of Rust. I’m in love with docker pull scratch:latest and putting your binary inside to run on an empty metal container. No need to waste 250MB of ram on a JVM. Use nano size instances and it’s just as fast as c5’s (async based workloads).

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> Google invented Go.

A handful of people at google invented golang is the more correct thing to say.

Yet, google continues to use Java at a much much bigger scale than golang.

golang is simplistic, not simple. Once you work on large golang code bases you'll see the challenges and messes it causes.

I work on really large go codebases

You're trying to make the point that the only companies using Java are doing so because of legacy. That is demonstrably untrue. Netflix and Google have had ample time and capacity to replace Java, yet they didn't.

As any good engineer, people working at those companies recognize that Java, Golang, Rust etc. are all tools and these tools have their place in different scenarios.

I used to be like you, but my personal "anti-language" was PHP. I would talk down on organizations using PHP and I would take them less seriously as engineers. But I have come to see that they too are using a language (PHP in this case) as a tool to build a business. And it serves those orgs well apparently.

Don't get me wrong, Java would not be my first choice in many cases. At the company I'm working for, we only use Golang and Python in the backend and Typescript in the frontend. That doesn't mean that I cannot recognize the value the Java can bring and the niche it occupies.

I'm actually pretty amazed by how far Java has come as a language. 10 years ago, I thought Java was going to be replaced by the likes of Kotlin or even Scala. But Java has pretty much caught up in terms of features and ergonomics compared to the Kotlin and occupies a comfortable spot now as being an expressive and productive language without bringing the learning curve and footguns of Scala.

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