Finding an alternative for Java

Some people at work question the use of Java as our main programming language. Since I am not a Java language fanatic I welcome the discussion however, several of the arguments mentioned against Java simply do not resist close scrutiny. Speed when compared to C/C++ ? JIT compiled Java speed is very close to C/C++ and the problems we have encountered in the past where speed was a problem were mostly related to I/O or ... bad design. Verbosity when compared to other languages ? Not such a big problem since the IDE handles most of the scaffolding (the infamous curly brackets, etc ...) and Java 8 removes some of the verbosity. Certainly not worth switching language specially when you consider the advantage of Java. Advantages that include: an incredible ecosystem of tools an libraries, a very good specification, several of the advantages of modern languages such as Garbage Collection and good support for multi-core processors. In fact, since I love programming languages I did try to find a good alternative because of the license issue. Having to pay for a license on embedded systems is a problem when trying to cut cost. Finding a viable lower cost alternative is not obvious. More on this in the next blog.