A dubious honor

how-to

May 20, 20081 min

Java makes ZDNet UK’s list of the most annoying software. “Java doesn’t do anything by itself. It’s a programming language. Programming languages are like sewage plants: if the average user becomes aware of them, something’s gone wrong. Java doesn’t know this.” Ouch.

Software Development

by Josh Fruhlinger

Contributing Writer

Follow Josh Fruhlinger on X

Josh Fruhlinger is a writer and editor who has been covering technology since the first dot-com boom. His interests include cybersecurity, programming tools and techniques, internet and open source culture, and what causes tech projects to fail. He won a 2025 AZBEE Award for a feature article on refactoring AI code and his coverage of generative AI earned him a Jesse H. Neal Award in 2024. In 2015 he published The Enthusiast, a novel about what happens when online fan communities collide with corporate marketing schemes. He lives in Los Angeles.

Show me more

Topics

About

Policies

Our Network

More

A dubious honor

More from this author

What is context engineering? And why it’s the new AI architecture

What is prompt engineering? The art of AI orchestration

What is GitOps? Extending devops to Kubernetes and beyond

Agents, protocols, and vibes: The best AI stories of 2025

It’s the end of vibe coding, already

What is A2A? How the agent-to-agent protocol enables autonomous collaboration

What is generative AI? How artificial intelligence creates content

What is vibe coding? AI writes the code so developers can think big

Show me more

Stop using AI to submit bug reports, says Google

The ‘toggle-away’ efficiencies: Cutting AI costs inside the training loop

AI optimization: How we cut energy costs in social media recommendation systems

How to build desktop apps in Typescript with Electrobun

Write and run assembly in Python with Copapy

Run AI Models Locally on Your PC — No Cloud Required (LM Studio Guide)