I agree with your points to a certain extent, but if you understand things from a Java mindset the features make sense.
The thing to understand is that, much like Smalltalk, the JVM is its own world. The underlying OS is only there to bootstrap the JVM, there is no Unix underneath. So every time you think they would do better to use some feature of the underlying OS you are breaking with the Java way of doing things.
I'd just like to point out that this is not the only Java mindset. It's certainly true that Java has a long and horrible tradition of people thinking that everything and the kitchen sink should go in the app server (which can then be managed with a SOAP interface!), but this is not intrinsic to Java, and it's not the only way to work with Java. Some of us are actually pretty keen on the 12 factor approach.
I appreciate that many JVM proponents treat the JVM as a world to itself. I guess the JVM community is big enough that it can afford to be that insular; that just makes it seem all the more foreign to the rest of us. Still, it seems to me that pragmatic developers can take advantage of the good parts of the JVM while rejecting the NIH syndrome. Puppet Labs, in particular, can rely on Unix being the OS underneath.
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I agree with your points to a certain extent, but if you understand things from a Java mindset the features make sense.
The thing to understand is that, much like Smalltalk, the JVM is its own world. The underlying OS is only there to bootstrap the JVM, there is no Unix underneath. So every time you think they would do better to use some feature of the underlying OS you are breaking with the Java way of doing things.
a Java mindset
I'd just like to point out that this is not the only Java mindset. It's certainly true that Java has a long and horrible tradition of people thinking that everything and the kitchen sink should go in the app server (which can then be managed with a SOAP interface!), but this is not intrinsic to Java, and it's not the only way to work with Java. Some of us are actually pretty keen on the 12 factor approach.
I appreciate that many JVM proponents treat the JVM as a world to itself. I guess the JVM community is big enough that it can afford to be that insular; that just makes it seem all the more foreign to the rest of us. Still, it seems to me that pragmatic developers can take advantage of the good parts of the JVM while rejecting the NIH syndrome. Puppet Labs, in particular, can rely on Unix being the OS underneath.
This is a Clojure framework though, so the Java mindset doesn't apply.