My comments on this O'Reilly weblog entry. O'Reilly Network: Has Java passed its prime? [October 01, 2002]
Increasing complexity, whether real or just perceived, does present a problem for Java as it may prevent some people from starting to use it. In some areas it's likely that Java will be replaced by simpler languages that offer other benefits to their users in those niches. In time one of these may emerge from its niche to challenge Java in the mainstream, but I don't think that's going to happen very soon.
In Java the perceived complexity comes from more packages and APIs being added to the standard set. The language itself has changed very little though, the complexity is in the number of packages.
The complexity arises for a reason though. Java is used to try to solve an increasingly diverse range of increasingly complex problems. Any language used in this way requires more complex functionality, look at C#, perl, python etc. If a language can solve a wide range of problems then it's likely to be seen be some people as "complex".
Complexity has its benefits too. There is now so much Java code available, in the standard packages and from open source projects, that many programming problems can be solved by assembling a solution from already working code. This benefit, often claimed for perl with its huge CPAN repository, really is quite substantial. However, it only occurs when a language reaches some critical mass, which is very close to the point at which people start to declare it's become too complex!
Finally, Java really should have no existence outside of the benefits it provides to its users, if it is replaced by a better solution then that's good. It's like the lamp in the new IKEA adverts, why feel sorry for Java, it has no feelings.
Posted by Alex at October 01, 2002 07:45 PM