I think people confuse "I don't personally know Java" with "Java has a slow time to market." Sure, for people that don't know Java, learning Java to that level is definitely going to cost you time.
I've worked with plenty of languages [1] since 2001 when I entered the job market . Recently I've been doing coding interviews for developers for a Java shop who theoretically knew Java. It pains me to see what they need to do to implement what I ask them (simple tic-tac-toe game) using Java. Something that in Ruby would be: puts(row.join('|')), in Python would be: print('|'.join(row)) in JavaScript would be console.log(row.join('|')) in Java requires either a StringBuilder monster or a third party library [2] to make it bearable.
And like that, there are other crazy things that make me glad I don't have to write Java anymore (I worked 4 years with it in total in the early 2000s).
[1] (VB6, VB.net, C#, Java, PHP, ActionScript3, C++, JavaScript, TypeScript Python, Ruby, 8086 asm, top of my head).
Right? I mean I think what GP is saying that they aren't qualified to interview Java programmers? Hasn't used it since 2010??? Yet they had the hubris to think that they were qualified, and used the interviewees lack of knowledge to confirm his priors about Java?
I have mentored coworkers who didn’t know Java on how to use Java at work. I would definitely rather hand a random person Java to learn for work than others.
