Fediverse

Browsing the code makes me angry at how bloated Java projects are:

package com.sublinks.sublinksapi.community.repositories;

import com.sublinks.sublinksapi.community.dto.Community;
import com.sublinks.sublinksapi.community.models.CommunitySearchCriteria;
import com.sublinks.sublinksapi.post.dto.Post;
import com.sublinks.sublinksapi.post.models.PostSearchCriteria;
import org.springframework.data.domain.Page;
import org.springframework.data.domain.Pageable;
import org.springframework.data.jpa.repository.JpaRepository;
import org.springframework.data.jpa.repository.Query;
import org.springframework.data.repository.query.Param;
import java.util.List;

public interface CommunitySearchRepository {

  List<Community> allCommunitiesBySearchCriteria(CommunitySearchCriteria communitySearchCriteria);

}

Every file is 8 directories deep, has 20 imports, and one SQL statement embedded in a string literal. 😭

There's nothing wrong with java

Who cares? If it works, it works.

The biggest strength of Java is that many programmers has years or even decades of experience in it.

I think how quickly this project has gotten to near feature parity is a testament to how slow Lemmy development has been. Think about scaled sort (a feature that has been hotly requested since the migration) and how long that took to get merged in. A sort should not by any means be slow to implement.

Because modern Java is an OK language with a great ecosystem to quickly build web backends. And there are lots of java devs which means more potential contributors.

Java instead of Rust is going to be a big thing for a lot of people who would like to contribute in their spare time. Yeah, Rust is cool, but every CS grad and their mother knows Java.

Back during the migration surge a few months ago, you commonly saw a LOT of comments from folks saying they would love to help eat away at the project’s backlog, but they just didn’t have the time or energy to learn Rust at the moment.

Lemmy doesn't have to have missing features for someone to want to write their own implementation. And in a decentralized system you want multiple implementations to exist. This is a good thing

It seems to be more language focused than hard to PR against the main repo.

Java is much more widely known than Rust, which means a much larger pool of developers. I never contributed to the original Lemmy server because I couldn’t wrap my head around a full production scale rust project. I’ll very likely contribute to this because I work with production Java code daily. Im sure I’m not the only other dev who has run into this.

Also maybe there’s just too many disagreements with the Lemmy owners, who are a bit extreme for a lot of people.

2024, Java is still the 2nd language on GitHub with 11,7% of the total code hosted, while Rust is number 13 with 1,8%

https://madnight.github.io/githut/#/pull_requests/2023/4

Next step, is to remake Lemmy in JavaScript. Pure JavaScript, no typescript, only express, nothing else

I have higher hopes. Java is three times more developers than Rust (https://www.statista.com/statistics/793628/worldwide-developer-survey-most-used-languages/), and you can see in this thread a number of people saying they could contribute as they know Java and not Rust.

Let's hope for the best.

Lemmy had 4 years of development to iron out bugs

Lemmy had 4 years to accrue technical debt and make foot-guns first-class features. A rewrite is probably exactly what it needs.

It’s not a fork though. It’s a complete rewrite in another programming language. That’s way more effort than a petty project.

The truth is, this might succeed based on developer reach. I love Rust, but I know it won’t have the reach (yet) that Java can, and more developers mean faster progress.

In the end, between this, Lemmy or another project which may be a fork of either, the success will be due to efforts of everyone involve at every stage. This wouldn’t exist without Lemmy, and Lemmy wouldn’t exist with ActivityPub.