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A Self-Referential Question About Java's Garbage Collection
Languages Post #5970 · source on Telegram

A Self-Referential Question About Java's Garbage Collection

Description

A screenshot of a tweet from the verified 'Replit' account (@Replit) set against a black background. The tweet reads, 'If Java is so good at garbage collection, why doesn't it collect itself?'. Engagement metrics below the text show 79 comments, 192 retweets, and 1,746 likes, indicated by a pink heart icon. Above the main tweet, a gray text notes, 'Paul Graham and 2 others liked'. A small watermark for 'ProgrammerHumor.io' is visible in the bottom-left corner. The humor comes from applying a core technical feature of the Java programming language - garbage collection (a form of automatic memory management) - to the language itself as a criticism. It's a witty insult suggesting that Java is 'garbage' and should be removed. This type of language rivalry and critique is a common and relatable trope within the software development community, especially among senior engineers who have seen languages and frameworks come and go

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Languages DevCommunities IndustryTrends Hype CS Fundamentals

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Java DeveloperHumor TechHumor MemoryManagement TechTwitter TechMeme LanguageWars

Comments

20
Anonymous ★ Top Pick If Java's garbage collector ever did collect itself, the first things to go would be the AbstractSingletonProxyFactoryBean and half the boilerplate, leaving just a surprisingly clean interface
  1. Anonymous ★ Top Pick

    If Java's garbage collector ever did collect itself, the first things to go would be the AbstractSingletonProxyFactoryBean and half the boilerplate, leaving just a surprisingly clean interface

  2. Anonymous

    Java can’t GC itself - there’s still a strong reference from every Fortune 500 stack and an Oracle support contract pinned in the root set

  3. Anonymous

    The real irony is that Java's garbage collector has probably spent more CPU cycles trying to optimize itself than most startups have spent on their entire infrastructure - yet somehow we still end up with 32GB heap dumps from a simple Spring Boot microservice that just returns 'Hello World'

  4. Anonymous

    The irony is that Java's garbage collector is actually quite sophisticated with its generational algorithms and concurrent marking - yet after 25+ years, the language itself has accumulated so much legacy baggage (verbose syntax, ceremony, enterprise bloat) that even the most aggressive GC tuning can't reclaim the developer productivity lost to boilerplate. Perhaps what Java really needs isn't a better garbage collector, but a 'legacy code collector' that can finally deprecate all those AbstractSingletonProxyFactoryBeans

  5. Anonymous

    Java's GC excels at orphans, but enterprise monoliths are immortal singletons with eternal lifecycles

  6. Anonymous

    Java doesn’t collect itself; it’s still strongly reachable from two decades of enterprise systems - the GC root is named “Oracle support contract,” and nobody’s allowed to set it to null

  7. Anonymous

    Java can’t collect itself - you can’t GC a GC root; the JVM is pinned by three decades of enterprise sign‑offs and 400 transitive dependencies

  8. @mihanizzm 2y

    Because it collect all other trash languages ㄟ(▔ ,▔)ㄏ

  9. @trainzman 2y

    The only thing worse than Java are attempts at English by this channels subscribers I guess

    1. @azizhakberdiev 2y

      it is barely an insult for non-natives

      1. @trainzman 2y

        I just like how 90% of the audience is russian yet we have "English only" rule

        1. @azizhakberdiev 2y

          https://t.me/dev_meme/16

          1. @trainzman 2y

            Do translations != english only

          2. @seekonelinesky 2y

            谁说的90%的都是俄罗斯人？

            1. @sylfn 2y

              Please use English in this chat. autotr (zh-cn > en): who said 90% of them are russian?

        2. @your_1st_father 2y

          Yeah they care for other 10% too

  10. @trainzman 2y

    baited

  11. @qtsmolcat 2y

    <language> bad ahhh meme

  12. @callofvoid0 2y

    ah shit lost the opportunity

  13. @LostGhost11 2y

    Going for low hanging fruits

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