Java IO Criticisms and Outdated Design | Generated by AI
Question: What are unpopular ideas about Java IO?
Answer:
Java’s java.io package (often referred to as Java IO) has been a core part of the language since its early versions, but it attracts criticism for design choices that feel outdated or cumbersome compared to modern alternatives. Here are some unpopular or contrarian opinions commonly expressed in developer communities:
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java.io is fundamentally flawed and overly complicated: The decorator pattern for streams (e.g., wrapping a
FileInputStreamin aBufferedInputStreamand then aDataInputStream) is seen as verbose and error-prone. Critics argue it leads to nested constructions and excessive boilerplate, especially for simple tasks like reading a file. -
java.io should be avoided entirely in favor of NIO (java.nio): An unpopular view is that the original blocking, stream-based IO is obsolete for most use cases. NIO (introduced in Java 1.4 and enhanced in Java 7 with NIO.2) offers non-blocking operations, buffers, channels, and better file handling via
java.nio.file.FilesandPath, which are faster and more efficient for large files or high-concurrency scenarios. -
java.io.File is outdated and should have been deprecated: The
java.io.Fileclass is criticized for poor error handling (e.g., returningbooleanfor operations like delete instead of throwing exceptions) and limited functionality compared tojava.nio.file.PathandFiles. -
java.io encourages bad practices in beginners: Its complexity makes basic file operations (e.g., reading/writing text) harder to teach and learn, leading to common mistakes like unclosed resources or inefficient unbuffered reads.
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Direct use of low-level streams like FileInputStream/FileOutputStream is harmful: They create objects that can strain garbage collection in long-running applications due to finalizers, and modern code should use try-with-resources with higher-level APIs.
These views are “unpopular” because java.io remains widely used for its simplicity in basic scenarios, backward compatibility, and familiarity. Many developers defend it as reliable and sufficient for everyday tasks, arguing that NIO’s complexity is overkill unless performance demands it.
References:
- Reddit: What are the valid criticisms against Java?
- Reddit: What are some of the outdated Java technologies which are worth avoiding?
- Baeldung: Java IO vs NIO
- DZone: FileInputStream / FileOutputStream Considered Harmful