Breaking Up Is Hard To Do
Dear Java,
We've been best friends for the past nine years. Over that time we've grown together, experienced many things, we've laughed, we've cried. You've been an integral part of my programming career since it began. Remember our first application? The endless possibilities, the late nights hacking, damm it was fun. Since then there's been so many apps and libraries and even, wink, frameworks and you've always been there for me.
But you know, that first application still isn't finished. Twelve thousand lines of code, three (four?) rewrites later and it still doesn't actually do much. Now, I know what you're thinking and you're right - it's not your fault. Sure I shouldn't have decided to write my own CSS parser, I should have looked for an existing 2D games toolkit. I know this, you know this, but that's not the problem. So what is? Well, why, after all this time, haven't I picked it back up? What's stopping me from going back?
I've been using Hibernate for years now, I know it pretty well. On the surface, it provides a nice, almost drop-in solution for object persistence. But there's always some wrinkle. Lately, it's been the fact that if Hibernate uses proxy objects for entity instances, you lose field access. What about accessor methods? Come on, you know I hate them with a passion, they are exactly the kind of pattern that exist to work around language failings. Your failings.
Look, no, sorry, I take that back. I don't want to be negative about this. But it's this sort of thing that slowly wears you down. After fighting with Hibernate again today, I've realised it is making me unhappy. Hacking with you is making me unhappy and there's no end in sight. So I need to do something about it - I've.. I've got to give you away.
Yes, I'm going to be hacking with Python more. Look, don't be like that. Python is a perfectly fine language. But it's not just Python, I want to check out other languages. You know, use the best tool for the job. And that's what I'm going to do. Starting today. I'm not going to just ditch you. All of those old projects will still be here. We'll still hang out (mostly during the week, I guess) and be great friends, but there can't be anything more then that.
No, I have no idea where this is going or how it's going to pan out, but you know, I'm excited even just by the prospect.
Thanks for everything, it's been awesome. Take care, and keep your chin up, after all, you will be around for ever.
/Mike