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0 pointslmm6y ago0 comments

> Setting up a scalable Java service is complicated even with tooling like spring boot

How so? You can use much the same techniques you would in Python, or you can deploy a .war to a bunch of application servers and achieve what you'd do with docker/kubernetes/etc. in a much simpler way. You've also got a much better chance of scaling up with a single instance and not needing to scale horizontally.

> the feedback cycle and general code velocity was much slower since we'd be on java 8 among other things

What's keeping you on Java 8? Major JVM version upgrades are much easier and safer than even minor Python upgrades. I'm not doubting your situation, but old version of one language versus new version of another is not really a fair basis for comparison.

> Plus learning spring or a Java ee framework is tantamount to learning a whole new language it wasn't worth the time then.

Sure. I'm not saying it's wrong to choose to stick with the technology you're currently using - there's definitely a cost to switching or learning something new. But it's worth being conscious of whether your technology choices are being driven by legacy constraints and whether you'd want to make a different choice on a green-field project.

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nimish6y ago

1. "Deploying a war to an application server" is a giant pain in the ass when you don't have people deeply familiar with EE app servers and tuning them. Python is not the best choice here but little can beat go's scp deploy

2. Tell that to every library that relied on java EE being shipped with the JDK. A lot of the reason to use Java was these libraries that are, if you're lucky, in maintenance mode. They're still stuck on 8 since it's not worth putting the time to migrate them to 11+ (I don't have that luxury, unfortunately)

3. > technology choices are being driven by legacy constraints

This project was greenfield but the problem domain is plagued by legacy constraints (all the way back to mainframes). "Rebuild from scratch" in a nicer, newer language would take years compared to a runway measured in months, so you do the math.

lmmOP6y ago

> Python is not the best choice here but little can beat go's scp deploy

Java is pretty damn close to that if you take the route of building a shaded jar (and embedding jetty if you need a web server). You need to install the JVM on the target server but that's all.

> Tell that to every library that relied on java EE being shipped with the JDK. A lot of the reason to use Java was these libraries that are, if you're lucky, in maintenance mode.

I don't think I ever saw a library like that? There's a huge, high-quality ecosystem of open-source Java libraries and I've never heard of any of them being reliant on Java EE.

> This project was greenfield but the problem domain is plagued by legacy constraints (all the way back to mainframes). "Rebuild from scratch" in a nicer, newer language would take years compared to a runway measured in months, so you do the math.

Sure, but you can't say this project is an example of when Python is a good technology choice if really the main reason you were using Python was because of legacy constraints.

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