Because when we call Java "ugly" or "stupid," it's the community we're talking about. My room mate is an extremely talented Java programmer, and he can fly around Eclipse[1] like a giant rainbow steamroller[2]. He uses Java like it should be used, and it's great. But I don't think he represents the community.
He tells me horror stories of code he refactors at work written by people in his own office, or worse, outsourced companies, and it's bad. It seems to me that that kind of code is more representative of the community.
When you're going to join a project, you have a better chance of encountering code not sucking if the overall culture of that language is better.
Ha, if you are thinking that way, I would suggest VB.NET or C# instead. Why? I remember the first time I was creating an MFC project using Project Wizard, I felt like I'm a fool looking at a bunch of auto-generated text & having no clue what it is about. And once again, I was in the same situation when I was using VS.NET to generate code for my first ASP.NET web app. But I still completed that webapp without even knowing what code is for. Does that make VB.NET/C# community more stupid than Java? Does that mean C#/VB.NET should be the ugly & stupid thing other than Java? So, you should better have another way to explain that.
He tells me horror stories of code he refactors at work written by people in his own office, or worse, outsourced companies, and it's bad. It seems to me that that kind of code is more representative of the community.
When you're going to join a project, you have a better chance of encountering code not sucking if the overall culture of that language is better.
[1]: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=eclipse+sorcery [2]: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/literally