Can I trust code I’ve written myself with no guarantees from the language? Maybe. Can I trust code written by dozens of other developers (and/or agents) working on the same project over multiple years? Definitely not.
Can you explain what the issue is with nullability here? Is the concern that someone's code returns null in normal circumstances but doesn't document that well, so you don't check if null? Cause if it's an error situation, one way or another some exception has to be thrown.
Most engineers do not have the ability to impose rules by fiat on all of their coworkers. It seems like you're misunderstanding the nature of working on a codebase as an IC when other developers contribute to it. If all of my coworkers don't want a lint rule I propose, I don't get to add it. If all of my other coworkers want to write code in a certain way and approve each other's MRs with code written in that way, I don't get to veto it.
Most engineers don't get to decide to use a language either. Usually someone with the clout to pick a language has the clout to set style requirements too.
They do get to decide which jobs they take. And the languages involved are one of the easiest filters. A lot easier than checking whether the code a company actually writes is any good.
Theoretically you don’t need to write AbstractFactoryProvider in Java, but looking at languages mentioned in job offers, I have a pretty good idea of which of them have a high probability of working with such code and which do not, even if all of them say they have the best code ever.
There are plenty of reasons why someone might not have a wide range of job options available and need to prioritize based on other factors than the language they have to use.
For concrete example, it took me a long time to find a job last year due to only fully remote being viable since my wife's autoimmune condition means I'd be risking her health by commuting, and nowadays most places seem to either expect hybrid if you live near an office (I'm within the geographic limits of NYC despite being nowhere near Manhattan), restrict by time zone (there were quite a few jobs I was interested in where they only would accept remote with Pacific or Mountain Time), or have onerous travel requirements (multiple opportunities I interviewed for didn't work out because they expected me to fly to the west coast every couple of months, which between the time there and jet lag would mean I'm not productive close to a quarter of the time).
I was in a fortunate position to be able to hold out for a while and ended up finding a fully job with my preferred language after around eight months, but I had already come up with a timeline for when I should start relaxing certain constraints if it went on longer. Programming language was literally the first constraint that I was going to drop if it lasted a few more months because prioritizing my wife's health is non-negotiable, and I'd rather work in a language I don't like as much on something that I don't feel is actively making the world a worse place than work in my favorite language on adtech or at some cryptocurrency startup. It's not clear to me why it would be a problem for me to care about using my non-favorite programming language well if I happened to be employed to write it.
I don't disagree, but that sounds more like a response to the person asking "what's the argument for picking Java?" than one to the someone who finds "Have you tried not returning null or constructing incomplete objects?" and "Why don't you have any coding standards?" to be poor takes.
If someone's asking "why Java" or is saying nulls make it a hard no, then you'd assume that they have a choice in the first place, which generally means they also have some ability to set coding standards at the same time that they're choosing a language.
Scala technically allows you to use nulls or throw exceptions pretty much wherever (necessary for Java compatibility), but it's not an issue because people simply don't outside of super niche situations (generally some low-level thing, or a shim). Similar to `unsafe` in Rust. Or casts in all sorts of languages.
> If someone's asking "why Java" or is saying nulls make it a hard no, then you'd assume that they have a choice in the first place, which generally means they also have some ability to set coding standards at the same time that they're choosing a language.
I don't understand that logic. I sometimes ask people to explain why they think a certain policy should be implemented by the government after they state their support for it, but I don't have the ability to set government policy. I have trouble imagining you genuinely assume that any time someone asks you why something should be the way you say that you think they have the ability to change it if you convince them.
Of course you assume that; if you're talking about what a policy should be, then you work in a hypothetical world where the policy can be chosen. You don't say "but what about some other minor detail! That would require an additional policy choice, and we can't change related policies."
Like if I think my business should open an hour earlier, and you say "but the employees won't be there yet so who will open the doors!" obviously the solution is to also change the work schedule. When you have closely related policies, generally the same person/people are empowered to make both changes.
Yes, a hypothetical world, not necessarily the real one. The first comment you responded to from me was me responding to someone who said "Why don't you have any coding standards?". It sounds like the answer to it that you're proposing is "I do, but they're just all hypothetical", which I guess isn't technically wrong but it's entirely irrelevant to the real-world circumstances that you still haven't addressed in any way from what I can tell.
Precise wording aside, the essential content of the back-and-forth here is:
> When should one use Java on projects?
> One shouldn't consider Java because it lets you use null.
> That's easily solvable by just not using null.
> But you can't just do that. People will use it.
> You can just do that. Tell them not to.
Like I'm not seeing the issue. This is like saying you can't use Rust because people will use `unsafe` because it lets them do C programmer things, and then claiming it is simply impossible to tell them not to do that (and set tool policies to flag anyone attempting to).
In the real world, if you're in a position to even ask "why use Java for a new project?" then you are presumably also in a position to have "don't use nulls" be a satisfying answer to "what about nulls?" If someone is asked what technology to use for a project in the first place, they are almost certainly also asked about how it will be used. The hypothetical here is not "do you have coding standards" but "are you a decision maker," and when the original question is "when should one decide to do X," you have to accept as a premise that you are placing yourself in the role of a decision maker in the first place.
Everyone has to deal with other code that might not even be from the same org. The "check it in CI" answer isn't an excuse either. You're bolting on so much extra crap that way.
I just don't see why nullability is a problem in the first place.
I don't think I've encountered an external library that returned partially constructed objects returned nulls (at least not without a @Nullable). There are probably cases of this existing, but those types of libraries don't tend to see a lot of users.
I admit I haven't worked in Java for years, but no project I've seen at my current company (the only one I've worked at since agents have been a useful thing) is anywhere close to removing all dependencies. From what I've seen, people want to spend tokens on new things, not things that are already known to exist. Even if you can reinvent the wheel, it's not something that an employer is going to be particularly happy to subsidize.
