Agreed. I spend way more time in the debugger in CoffeeScript than I do with Java, simply because I have no idea what type of object I'm dealing with at that particular instant. I also tend to write pages of Java code and it runs the first time because I can read it and see exactly what it is doing before it runs. The compiler also tells me what typos I have in my code before I even have to run it.
I don't buy this for a second for many reasons. First, in Java I have to deal with a lot of other headaches. Heaven forbid I have to customize maven! Or, I'm using some annotation based framework, let's say jax-rs, and I'm trying to figure out why the annotations I'm putting on something aren't having the effect I think they should be having. Then there is the fact that my java project will likely have more lines of xml than lines of code in the equivalent ruby project.
But, at the end of the day I'll bet money that I can write a non trivial website faster with rails using notepad than the vast majority of java people can with their favorite IDE and java framework.
Sorry, I wrote more than one comment in this thread and was referring to one of the others. Java is much more verbose and I believe that has a negative impact. Here's the example I used earlier: http://jaydonnell.com/blog/2011/08/07/is-your-idea-clearly-e...
That same code in C# would be nearly as concise as the ruby code. But there is more to it than just this. I've seen large Java projects that can't decide if they want to use interfaces or abstract classes. I don't think this is something one should spend much time on, but you're forced to in Java.
I've also see large java projects where they have some public interface that a bunch of other people are building off of, and after a couple years they realize they need to add a method to it. Ruh roh, what now? Again, why is this so painful?
Obviously these aren't problems in ruby because you can change classes at will. This scares some people, but I've done a LOT Of ruby and haven't had any serious problems with it. If you really like static typing then scala solves these problems as well and keeps the static typing.
Oh, another problem I've had in java are two frameworks butting heads over which is in the drivers seat as far as annotation based dispatch. Look back at the early days of combining guice with jax-rs.
