this post was submitted on 23 Jan 2024

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Sublinks Aims to Be a Drop-In Replacement for Lemmy (wedistribute.org)

submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

166 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Seems like an interesting effort. A developer is building an alternative Java-based backend to Lemmy's Rust-based one, with the goal of building in a handful of different features. The dev is looking at using this compatibility to migrate their instance over to the new platform, while allowing the community to use their apps of choice.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (4 children)

Browsing the code makes me angry at how bloated Java projects are:

package com.sublinks.sublinksapi.community.repositories;

import com.sublinks.sublinksapi.community.dto.Community;
import com.sublinks.sublinksapi.community.models.CommunitySearchCriteria;
import com.sublinks.sublinksapi.post.dto.Post;
import com.sublinks.sublinksapi.post.models.PostSearchCriteria;
import org.springframework.data.domain.Page;
import org.springframework.data.domain.Pageable;
import org.springframework.data.jpa.repository.JpaRepository;
import org.springframework.data.jpa.repository.Query;
import org.springframework.data.repository.query.Param;
import java.util.List;

public interface CommunitySearchRepository {

  List<Community> allCommunitiesBySearchCriteria(CommunitySearchCriteria communitySearchCriteria);

}

Every file is 8 directories deep, has 20 imports, and one SQL statement embedded in a string literal. 😭

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago (1 children)

And what's bad about that? As in, how is the verbosity a negative thing exactly? More so because virtually any tool can be configured to default-collapse these things if for your specific workflow you don't require the information.

At the same time, since everything is verbose, you can get very explicit information if you need it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

Here's an example:

https://github.com/sublinks/sublinks-api/blob/main/src/main/java/com/sublinks/sublinksapi/community/listeners/CommunityLinkPersonCommunityCreatedListener.java

IMO that's a lot of code (and a whole dedicated file) just to (magically) hook a global event and increase the subscriber count when a link object is added.

The worst part is that it's all copy/pasted into a neighbouring file which does the reverse:

https://github.com/sublinks/sublinks-api/blob/main/src/main/java/com/sublinks/sublinksapi/community/listeners/CommunityLinkPersonCommunityDeletedListener.java

It's not the end of the world or anything, I just think good code should surprise you with its simplicity. This surprises me with its complexity.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Its still better than any python project lol

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Really? I find python imports to work very similar to cpp in practice.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago (1 children)

But you really dont see what the function wants or requires or returns ( except with typehints, but they dont work most of the time and then its not enforced in any way )

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Larger, modern python projects always use type hints, for this specific reason.

In the past you had PyDoc, which also scratched that itch.

Barring that, contributing to a python project is very difficult without an IDE that performs type checks for you (which is unreliable).

[–] [email protected] -1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Correct! As i already contributing to a big ass python project at work. We will rewrite a Big Project from python to c# in under 1 month.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Just you wait until your developers learn about the var keyword - it's going to be Python 2.7 PTSD incidents all over again 😂

[–] [email protected] -1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Isnt that already default on all variables? Its like a var(in js)?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Nope, was added to dot Net after the fact. Normally you declare each type by hand, e.g.

ArrayList<int> myCoolList = new ArrayList<int>();

var myCoolList = new ArrayList<int>();

The second example is why the keyword was added, but now imagine you have a function call returning an unknown type, and then things will start to get super funky.

E.g.

var myCoolBook = BuildBookData(input);

...one step forward and then the same step back 😂 (disclaimer: I do actually like C#, though)

[–] [email protected] -1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Ahh you mean the implementation of var in other langauges than python, i missunderstood you there! Yeah var is a bit risky to use in that case, same i like c# too! Its pretty reliable and stable.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Yep, I was specifically talking about C#'s implementation.

I worked with some large C# code bases, and you could always see the point in time in which an individual developer would finally get comfortable with var - it's when the code would start getting unreadable. 🤣

[–] [email protected] -1 points 9 months ago

Yeah same ;D But at least its not like in smaller or medium sized python projects where even if its just 2 files its unbearable unpredictable.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Most IDEs will handle the imports for you and auto collapse them

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Ignoring the problem doesn’t make it better

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago (1 children)

How would you do "better" imports then?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

*Vaguely wave arms towards the few dozens languages that do imports right*

I don’t mind Java personally, but let’s not pretend that its import syntax and semantics is at the better side of the spectrum here.

Just look at… Go, Haskell, TypeScript, Rust, even D has a better module system.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Isn't Go just the equivalent of only doing asterisk-imports in Java, just without (and fair enough, Java has 0 need to do that 😂) repeating the import-keyword?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

There are multiple things in Go that make it better.

But just for giving a few thoughts about Java itself;

being able to import a package and use it as a namespace would already go a long way
being able to import multiple things from a package without listing separate line for each items
not having to go from the root of the whole fucking world to import a package would be great
having the ability to do relative imports to the module I’m writing would be great

These are like “module 101” things. Like, you’re right that the IDEs nowadays do most of that, but IDEs also get it wrong (“oh you meant a THAT package instead of that other one”) and reading the code without an IDE is still a thing (code reviews for example) which means the longer the import section (both vertically and horizontally) the harder it is to work with. And if you don’t look at all imports carefully you may miss a bug or a vulnerability.

Also, Java is the only language I know of that has such a span on the horizontal. The memes about needing a widescreen monitor for Java is actually not a joke; I never had to scroll horizontally in any other language. To me that’s just insanity.

Also, if you’re gonna make it the whole universe as the root of your package structure, we already have DNS and URI/URLs for that. Let me use that!

And don’t get me started as only-files-as-packages while simultaneously having maybe-you-have-multiple-root for your code… makes discovery of related files to the one you’re working with very hard. Then of course the over reliance on generated code generating imports that might or might not exist yet because you just cloned your project…

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Yup. Welcome to the world of Java where such things are not only silly but encouraged.