I've returned to Java after using Clojure and Groovy for several years. I appreciate the fact that Java's just plain boring and slightly verbose.
Most of the time the complexity in my code has little to do with Java being verbose and more due to the business problem. There are areas to improve and Java's been making great strides recently. For example, in Java 21 we may finally have methods like getFirst() and getLast() for lists (via JEP 431) instead of the incredibly clunky list.get(list.size() - 1). Java also recently added multi-line Strings and templating is coming shortly. Streams and Optionals also reduce quite a bit of boilerplate, e.g. Optional's map and ifPresent methods are often elegant. Really I can't think of many other areas where Java gets in the way. Our team is incredibly productive with modern Java.
I think most developers actually write overly verbose code regardless of the language. And it seems little to do with years experience. This youtube channel covers most of the basics:
To me I just follow these recommendations naturally but in most PRs I review there's often huge amounts of overly nested code, poorly named methods, etc.
Not my youtube channel. It just showed up in my recommended videos and it seemed like good advice (common sense). It's helpful to point devs to those videos when I see them making those types of mistakes.
I miss the data oriented approach Clojure libraries take. I remember having an issue with Ring and I just dove into the Ring source code and it was so simple and clear and I found the solution to my issue in minutes. I've never had that experience with Java and instead resort to forums, stackoverflow, etc. Most Java libraries would have several layers of abstraction and they're often intimidating. I consider myself an amateur Clojure dev and yet still contributed some PRs to some projects.
With that said, I've written some internal tools in Clojure and it was a nightmare whenever I had to modify them. They were pretty simple CLI tools that only needed updates every 6 months or so. I usually have to spin up the project with a repl just to understand the inputs and outputs to functions. I've ported all internal tools I created at my current company from Clojure to Java and I personally find them so much easier to maintain.
Most of the time the complexity in my code has little to do with Java being verbose and more due to the business problem. There are areas to improve and Java's been making great strides recently. For example, in Java 21 we may finally have methods like getFirst() and getLast() for lists (via JEP 431) instead of the incredibly clunky list.get(list.size() - 1). Java also recently added multi-line Strings and templating is coming shortly. Streams and Optionals also reduce quite a bit of boilerplate, e.g. Optional's map and ifPresent methods are often elegant. Really I can't think of many other areas where Java gets in the way. Our team is incredibly productive with modern Java.
I think most developers actually write overly verbose code regardless of the language. And it seems little to do with years experience. This youtube channel covers most of the basics:
https://www.youtube.com/@CodeAesthetic
To me I just follow these recommendations naturally but in most PRs I review there's often huge amounts of overly nested code, poorly named methods, etc.