Seems like an interesting effort. A developer is building an alternative Java-based backend to Lemmy's Rust-based one, with the goal of building in a handful of different features. The dev is looking at using this compatibility to migrate their instance over to the new platform, while allowing the community to use their apps of choice.

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[–] MargotRobbie@lemmy.world 39 points 10 months ago (61 children)

Having a frontend rewrite seemed more critical than trying reimplementing the backend in a different language.

Remember, Lemmy had 4 years of development to iron out bugs, and this is essentially promising to make something in months that has a fully compatible backend to support all the third party apps, while adding features on top of what Lemmy has, and with a better front end with better mod tools to boot, with a complete rewrite of everything.

The scope of this project has planned for is already unviable. Suppose that Sublinks does reach feature parity to the current version of Lemmy, congratulations, the backend or mod tools is not something a regular user is going to notice or care about at all, all they will know is that suddenly, there are weird bugs that wasn't there before, and that causes frustration.

And this project is going to get more developer traction because... Java?

I'd like to be proven wrong, but I'm very sceptical about the success of Sublinks, because it look like a project that was started out of tech arrogance to prove a point than out of a real need, I don't work in tech, but the general trajectory of these kind of projects is that "enthusiasm from frustration" can only take you so far before the annoyance of dealing with mundane problems piles up, and the project fizzles out and ends with a whimper.

[–] Blaze@discuss.online 17 points 10 months ago (44 children)

I have higher hopes. Java is three times more developers than Rust (https://www.statista.com/statistics/793628/worldwide-developer-survey-most-used-languages/), and you can see in this thread a number of people saying they could contribute as they know Java and not Rust.

Let's hope for the best.

[–] Fudoshin@feddit.uk 21 points 10 months ago (32 children)

Java is a corporate language that most devs hate. Rust (Lemmy) is more popular as a hobby language that devs enjoy hacking in for fun.

[–] Blaze@discuss.online 8 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Hm, Java is hated by devs, but still 2nd language on GitHub with 11,7% of the total code hosted, while Rust is number 13 with 1,8%?

https://madnight.github.io/githut/#/pull_requests/2023/4

[–] SomethingBurger@jlai.lu 21 points 10 months ago (1 children)

How much of that 11.7% is 35-character class names?

I'm only half joking.

[–] magic_lobster_party@kbin.social 7 points 10 months ago

It’s by amount of pull requests, so the length of class names and other Java boilerplate doesn’t count.

[–] Fudoshin@feddit.uk 3 points 10 months ago (3 children)

Stockholm syndrome.

[–] Blaze@discuss.online 14 points 10 months ago (2 children)

And even more, the Lemmy codebase doesn't really have any important developers besides the two main devs: https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/graphs/contributors.

Even looking at the contributions to something like Mbin, which has been around for much shorter, you already see 6 people with more than 50 commits, while Lemmy has one

https://github.com/MbinOrg/mbin/graphs/contributors

[–] jgrim@discuss.online 10 points 10 months ago

We have 13 contributors with Sublinks so far. I expect more will come after the announcement.

[–] dandroid@dandroid.app 12 points 10 months ago (1 children)

"I'm right, and if anyone disagrees, it's because they're brainwashed"

There's literally no possible way to argue against this type of logic.

[–] Fudoshin@feddit.uk -5 points 10 months ago

The weight of my intellect is a heavy burden to bear.

[–] c0mbatbag3l@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Irrelevant

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