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Comment by pron | Hacker News Reader

It is fascinating to watch how people underestimate the cost of switching a programming language[1], and overestimate the benefits of a new one.

It is also horrifying.

[1]: Switching to another language on the same platform (JVM/JS) lowers the cost considerably, but it is still high.

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True, how about starting with the right language? :) I only write Clojure for both JVM and JS. Works like a charm. The only problem is when you need to work in a team and nobody does anything else but Java and JS.

My rule of thumb is, if you need to switch a primary production language more than once a decade[1], then you're picking them wrong.

Personally, I've been using Java for over a decade, and a few years ago I added Clojure to the mix and expect it to serve me for over a decade, as well. I like them both and believe they both qualify as good picks. I'm also adding Kotlin now, too, mostly because its switching cost and added risk are practically zero.

[1]: for reasons other than targeting a new platform

Speaking of which, Estonia recently implemented a "no legacy" directive [1], under which all government systems will be rewritten from scratch at least every thirteen years. They are taking the stance that a good implementation will last around a decade, not less, but also not much more.

[1]: http://www.ozy.com/rising-stars/taavi-kotka-is-putting-the-e...

Sounds about right.

Seconding Kotlin coming from Java. It takes maybe 2 days to learn everything in the language if you already know Java, and it fixes pretty much all the warts that bother me about Java (the big ones for me are immutable references, first-class/higher-order functions, and unnullable-by-default references. Type inference and string interpolations are handy as well). It also has a small enough runtime/stdlib (unlike Scala or Clojure, which I've also tried) to make it practical to use in environments where startup time matters, specifically Android.

When it comes to startup times and Clojure, I'm keeping my eyes on Skummet: http://clojure-android.info/skummet/

Just want to say I found this comment informative, on-topic, and its tone respectful and appropriate, so I'm disappointed it has been downvoted :(

Absolutely, I need to learn about Kotlik, it almost looks like Scala at the first glance.

I agree with you about languages and targeting 10+ years with it. Stability is worth more than anything to me, out of the box performance also important (this tend to be great for older languages) not to mention the std library quality. For these reasons Java is an excellent choice.

Clojure came to me as a total surprise, since I haven't studied CS and because I was surrounded with Perl/Java engineers for a long time I haven't heard about Lisp till 2011. It changed my approach to software engineering a lot. It is absolutely eye opening, mind blowing and all that jazz.

ROFL. "Right" language. There is no such thing. There's only technical tradeoffs and personal preferences. Everything else is simply faith and dogma.

But, I'm sure someday we'll all discover your one true God... Err... Programming language, like the lispers and smalltalkers, the rubyists and the haskellers, the C++ fanatics and the C faithful...

There is such a thing but the scope is usually limited to a problem, a project, a department or a company. A good example would be OCaml and Jane Street for the latter.

Right. So for the exact same problem domain, one company might use Java and another might use Haskell, purely because of history, the candidates they can find, and any number of other possible concerns.

None of this has anything to do with objective technical superiority of one solution or another, assuming you could make that case definitively. And if one could make that case, technical superiority is only one input into a much more complicated decision-making process.

Again: there is no one true language. There never was and there never will be. Our entire industry, hell, all industries, operate based on tradeoffs, whether those be business, technical, political, or other. Why would programming language selection be any different?

In ten years some other language will get the right language, and the things you're talking about will be for dinosaurs.

Don't fall for that trap. What matters is that you build solid software that delivers value.

Well I might have given you the impression that I am a Clojure zealot. This is not true at all. I program in Ruby, Python, Java, Erlang, Go and OCaml on the top of Clojure. The only reason I prefer the later it because I can use the same minimal syntax to target 2 VMs and that is a huge win. It is also fun to show people the power of Lisp time to time, but that is it. If my manager or team asks me to write code in a random language I am going to learn it and do it, but for personal projects I tend to use Clojure. This is all.

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