Blogging Ottinger (tim)Java is So American
I think that the thing that annoys me about java people is the same thing that annoys Europeans about Americans.
A lot of java programmers started programming in java, and may not know another language. All their early experiences are in Java, all their OO experiences (until ruby maybe) have been in Java, and they have “always” been immersed in the java culture. Other cultures are older and newer than theirs, and run on a different set of rules. Other programming cultures use different words than java programmers do, even when referring to the same concepts. Java has its own set of luminaries and java programmers consider that everyone knows them. Java-only developers are sure that their way of programming is, if not the best, one of the “most good.” Java programmers think everyone is just like them, or else wants to be.
This monoculturalism is very apparent to the foreigner (non-java programmers) but those inside the culture are completely oblivious to it. If I could add that “java programmers think they’re world-leaders” then we would have the American experience almost perfectly paralleled.
On the other hand, I’ve not had the kind of non-java-programmer rejection among the java crowd that an immigrant frequently gets on these shores. I guess some of the imperfections in the analogy are improvements.
