Dave Voorhis, a 35-year veteran of the software industry as a software entrepreneur, engineer, and educator, has expressed his thoughts on why Java is regarded a difficult programming language.
Read below:
In actuality, when compared to other languages, learning Java is relatively easy.
Pascal was once widely used in education since it was designed to be a pedagogical language and was simple to learn.
It wasn't easy to use to develop real things until Turbo Pascal — and subsequently Delphi — came around, but they weren't as simple to master.
It appears that practicality and simplicity are at odds.
BASIC was once used for teaching, but it had so many errors, gotchas, and other annoyances that it was best avoided. It's practically gone now, and farewell.
Python is the modern-day version of BASIC. Everyone wants to learn Python, just as in the 1980s when everyone wanted to learn BASIC.
Python appears to be simple to learn, yet its ease of use is deceiving. Value representations, type handling, and pointers are all fundamental notions that are usually buried.
You'll be fine if you never need to know them, but if you do, a lack of foundational information might hold you back and cause confusion for years.
JavaScript is the same way. Early deceptive simplicity gives rise to a plethora of potholes, stumbling obstacles, and oddities that obstruct true programming comprehension.
Then there are the more challenging languages.
Haskell and Lisp are sometimes taught as first languages, and they appear to work if you have a specific attitude. The temptation is to say "mathematical mindset," but that isn't entirely right; they're no more "mathematical" than other programming languages, but they can be tough for novices.
So, there's Java.
Despite the complexity of the Java libraries, the core language is straightforward. It's less prone to deceptive simplicity than BASIC, Python, JavaScript, Ruby, PHP, and other similar languages, but it forces the learner to tackle object-oriented concepts like encapsulation, inheritance, and polymorphism, as well as programming fundamentals like sequence, selection, iteration, expression evaluation, and variables, all while learning essential library mechanisms.
It's a lot to process at once.
As a result, I recommend starting with C.
C is a good learning language for me. It's like peering into a machine with all of the covers removed to reveal the moving parts. The standard library is straightforward; it doesn't hide pointers and value representations, and it doesn't obfuscate programming concepts behind an object-oriented facade.
You learn the principles of programming, and only the fundamentals of programming, in C, along with a healthy dosage of machine foundations.
However, unless you plan to be a systems programmer, you should move to Java or C# once you've learned C.
If you're not a systems programmer, C has a lot of traps that will eventually bite you. Above all, avoid using C as a programming language for business applications. It's the incorrect instrument for the task in this case.
It's also simple to pick up Java or C# after learning C.
Java and C#, by the way, are so similar that they're basically two different languages. C# includes a few more language features, which C# users adore. People who use Java believe it adds unnecessary noise, but we're comparing apples to somewhat different kinds of apples.
Consider C# and Java to be the same thing.
Learning C first, then Java or C#, is, in my opinion, easier than learning either Java or C# on its own.
So, why is Java regarded as a difficult programming language?
In a nutshell, it's because Java has a vast library, object orientation, and all of the complexity of a completely statically-typed programming language. It's designed for creating industrial-grade software equipment, thus it's an industrial tool that necessitates an industrial-level dedication to mastering it.
That makes it inherently complex, because everything that is complex is difficult.
But don't be put off by this. Alternatives like Python and JavaScript may appear to be simpler, but they aren't. To begin, learn C, and then go on to Java. Then it won't seem as difficult — in fact, you'll see how Java's capabilities make a lot of C easier and simpler — and you'll be ready to utilize it for what it was designed for: developing industrial-strength corporate software.
