Peter Stampede

Hi Paul,

What has been your favorite part of writing this book? Is there any one topic you found most interesting?

Hi Paul!

I'm a very hands on learner, I was wondering if you felt that working on projects in Java would be a good supplement to learning the material for the exam?
Are there any specific types of projects you could recommend?

Thanks!,
Pete

Thank you Shai,
Your post literally blew my mind, it is amazing. Honestly for that post alone I think I'll buy a physical copy of your book. I'm not kidding.

You confirm many of my doubts about modern web dev. There is a lot of hype out there, and it's hard not to get caught up in the latest craze if you spend any time on social media, youtube, etc. At the end of the day enterprise clients need reliability and all of the 7 strengths you mention mean they're going to stay with Java. No one is completely jumping ship to new dev platforms, likely just moving things to containers, DevOps, SRE, etc. Maybe Enterprises will find other supporting uses for those languages/tools, seeing if they pan out long term. Where I work we have a ton of Python tooling and Python web pages for engineering support tools.

I read that Amazon started out heavily using Perl and has since moved to primarily java (amongst many others).  I feel like this pattern repeats itself a lot, things start in any number of languages to get off the ground and ultimately move to Java for those strengths.

I do also like how much Java has matured over the past 5-10 years. It's inherited a lot from some of the other JVM languages like Scala and Groovy, which is really smart. It hasn't grown chaotically which I feel C++ has. I love the quote from the Primeagen "The best way to describe C++ is features will continue until moral improves."
Not putting any language down, Java has it's own Meme-fest I'm sure, but how Java handles it's critiques is refreshing. It actually improves.

Caching makes a lot of sense I haven't dealt with that side of application dev/devops much but I need to learn more.

Thanks again for your detailed response.

Thanks Shai, Thanks Tim,
Those are some great options, i've never heard of those hosting sites. That's an interesting option.

Linode seems like a solid choice, like you mentioned despite the "cost" of setting everything up and maintaining it  you have the most flexibility. I would like to try Lambda out too, I've never used that before.  

Looking into GraalVM I read up on how to containerize Java applications, and it seems pretty straight forward. I'm super amazed to see that the IntelliJ IDE can help you create and manage docker images right in the IDE. That is so cool.
I've personally stepped away from Java for a few years working on infrastructure roles but am looking to get back into it. It's so cool to see all the new toys

Containerizing Java apps is probably way beyond the scope of your book, especially since dealing with Docker + K8s is like a full time job unto itself, especially when things go wrong.

Shai Almog wrote:
In the book I go through this in steps. Building a command line app in pure Java. Then as we proceed we go through a spring boot webservice, thymeleaf then to an SPA in JavaScript which connects back to the webservice. I think this process helps new developers understand the evolutionary process we went through historically.

That is so cool that you traverse the history of Java and the web. Understanding where things originated from always interests me.

Looking between a pure javascript webapp and one with a Java in any part of the stack, is one significantly more performant than the other? What are Java's strengths in the modern web?

Not to be overly direct or rude but I would like to understand your thoughts about, With the abundance of javascript frameworks out there, why should I learn Java?  It feels like typescript, react, and python among many others are stealing the show with modern web apps and maybe Rust and web assembly grabbing a slice of high performance applications. Where does Java fit in and what is it's future?  

Hi Shai,

 I scrolled through the table of contents on your book and it is dense! wow. I apologize if my questions are very 'noob'-ish but while I have your ear

 In your book, and in general how do you host the web pages that you create using Java? Self hosting locally is one thing but if working on this kind of project I would love to be able to actually host my projects live on the web.

 Cloud providers would probably get me there, but would your standard 'cpanel' type hosting suffice? It totally doesn't jive with java's strengths of being an enterprise workhorse. A full server would be best of course but common shared hosting is super inexpensive and maybe an easy way to get quick positive feedback on book progress?


Thanks!,
Pete

Nice! Thanks for those!!

Yea, functional first is an interesting approach. I read about some places doing that with Racket and using the Dr. Racket IDE as a way to teach non-programmers how to code. MIT has it's scheme coursework too, but it's also not beginner material.

Hi Vitaly,

Are there any Haskell applications which serve as the 'high bar' of things that can be accomplished with Haskell?
Or are there any specific libraries which set Haskell apart?

Are there any blogs or vlogs you recommend following for examples of Haskell in action?

Hi Vitaly,

Thanks for that, that is great to know.

Thinking about your comments on Haskell being general purpose, it seems more similar to Python than focused languages like Node.JS or C++. Haskell has a good number of high quality libraries to facilitate productivity in a lot of areas, which I guess translates to industry by not being pigeon holed into one small niche.

Hi Vitaly!,

I guess two questions here for myself and in general. Does your book require existing knowledge in Haskell? Haskell in general, would you recommend it as a first language or something for a beginner programmer?

Pete

Nice! Thank you for sharing those resources.

I would imagine this is one of the largest blockers to any language adoption. From the Dev's perspective "What's in it for me?"  I'm surprised and delighted to say Haskell has a good foundation in Industry that is ever growing. It's not just tied to a specific movement like going functional, Haskell makes sense to solve user problems.  

I work in DevOps. I was interviewing a few months ago for a new job and when talking with leadership at one organization I found they were heavily dependent on Haskell for real time data processing. I ended up getting promoted internally, but I would have loved the opportunity to work at this other company. Lesson learned there are some hidden gems out there. Small Big companies, or bigger small companies, which offer a great product and have a great tech team using Haskell. After those interviews I see the company all over TV when news stations talk about the airline industry and provide airline data.

Hi Vitaly!,

I've been following the Haskell community for sometime, joining meetups, watching presentations from Haskell greats and learning drips and drabs. I love the idea of using Haskell for my personal projects, but is it realistic to expect to make the jump from tinkerer to employed developer? Especially as a JR developer?

Are there any industry niches where Haskell seems to flourish? Or any big companies we can watch for job openings? (The equivalent to OCaml + Jane Street)
Maybe I can develop my skills with a particular niche in mind to help bolster my employability when the opportunity comes?

Thanks!
Pete

Hi Vitaly,

I'm looking forward to this discussion. I've got lots of Haskell questions, and curious to see what the forum asks too.


Thanks!