this post was submitted on 02 May 2025
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Programming
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For me, the more relevant adage here is "a bad abstraction is worse than no abstraction".
IMO many abstractions in Java are terrible in this regard, either via commonly proliferated patterns or via language design issues. Abstractions large and small are all forcibly locked into place very early on in the name of formalism and safety, ultimately leaving us with poor versions of the former and weakened versions of the latter. Where is "encapsulation" when certain classes only work when hooked up in very particular ways to other distant classes? Where is "type safety" when certain methods simply raise "not implemented for this sub/super-type"?
These faults are often hand-waved as "all ecosystems have rough patches", but my point is that Java's bad abstractions in particular are supremely more stubborn and persistent in comparison with other ecosystems. I understand many consider this a strength aka stability, but IMO at the extreme being unable to shed the past means negatively hindering progress. I think modern Java versions show a budding shift in mentality, but I've already moved on -- it's just not for me.
Also not having used Java for decades I'll not comment on the state of their abstractions, but
both reminds me of similar complaints against C++ (and with a sizeable amount of users wishing for an ABI break), and how weird it is to get both complaints like that and over the fact that so many shops are on ancient versions. They've moved slowly, but it doesn't seem like anything was slow enough for a lot of shops, which indicates they likely could've moved faster without changing which versions users would be at today.