Don't forget the tools and infrastructure that support good engineering (dependency management, build, javadoc, findbugs, checkstyle, PMD, cobertura for code-coverage, better unit-testing frameworks, the list goes on).
I'm sure C++ ecosystem has some of those but whether people are using them or not seem quite obvious: how many C++ projects do that out there? Not as many as the Java counterpart.
> how many C++ projects do that out there? Not as many as the Java counterpart.
I'm not sure this is a good argument.
Projects where performance is critical are coded in C/C++ , not in java ( browsers , AAA games , databases , servers , micro-controllers , oses... ). C/C++ programming is not about writing 'elegant' code with FactoryFactories , but performances. Even if it means using very basic data structures instead of classes or inlining functions everywhere.
> Projects where performance is critical are coded in C/C++ , not in java ( browsers , AAA games , databases , servers , micro-controllers , oses... ).
This is not true. C++ beats Java performance in constrained environments. On servers the situation is not so clear-cut. You see some really fast Java databases.
And BTW, Java is better at inlining functions than C++, but C++ handily beats Java when it comes to controlling memory layout (though that, too, is changing).
"VoltDB mainly consists of Java modules for easier development.
However, the core EE and its underlying on-memory storage system is
implemented in C++. Nowadays Java and C++ have almost same performance
for many cases, but C++ still outperforms Java on low-level memory accesses.
This is why we have EE and its storage system written in C++."
Actually, my favorite bits are runtime linking, JMX, VisualVM and, most recently, FlightRecorder + Java Mission Control, which has to be one of the coolest profilers I've seen. But I was just talking about performance.
Don't forget the javaagent and the ability to instrument JVM. Event .NET/CLR doesn't have that (They have some low-level COM/Profiler API but boy that takes a lot of effort to work with).
Sorry I don't mean to hijack thread or anything like that but I work for AppNeta and we're on the APM field instrumenting various platforms. If you ever need an instrumentation tools for your full-stack infrastructure, check us out :).
Almost agree, but minor nitpick: the tools and infrastructure (at least most of them) exist on other platforms in the same or better quality as well. Especially dependency management is not necessarily a strong side of Java (one global namespace for types etc.).
I am not entirely sure what you mean by that, but in Java, a runtime type is determined as a combination of its name and its class-loader. You can (and do) have two versions of the same class running alongside one another in different modules of your code.
Granted, supporting this stuff is not easy, but hopefully the long awaited module system planned (currently...) for Java 9 is supposed to make this all both powerful and easy.
I'm sure C++ ecosystem has some of those but whether people are using them or not seem quite obvious: how many C++ projects do that out there? Not as many as the Java counterpart.