vsbabu.org

Java is an SUV

Java is the SUV of programming tools: “A project done in Java will cost 5 times as much, take twice as long, and be harder to maintain than a project done in a scripting language such as PHP or Perl. People who are serious about getting the job done on time and under budget will use tools such as Visual Basic (controlled all the machines that decoded the human genome). But the programmers and managers using Java will feel good about themselves because they are using a tool that, in theory, has a lot of power for handling problems of tremendous complexity. ”

I’d have probably considered J2EE as the SUV. Java is still reasonable, especially considering the libraries available.

At times I’m inclined to think that MVC way of building apps is suitable for maintainable code. Still, the better maintainable code is code with lesser number of lines and files. This is where I really like Python; and Zope. 80% of the tasks you do in web application development are similar. I’d rather have a framework provide me with the implementations of these tasks; rather than me having to go over design pattern books.

While building some J2EE apps, I couldn’t help thinking about this. Writing ant tasks, junit tests, classes, database persistence etc., I kept reminiscing on how easily I could’ve achieved the same result in 1/10^th the time, if I had used Zope to talk to an RDBMS.

From a programmer’s perspective, I like C#/.Net a bit better than Java/J2EE. First reason is that I don’t want to be a guru in one particular technology, capable of answering the questions “how to solve this problem in that particular technology?”. I would rather answer the questions “how to solve this problem?” Here’s how. Second reason is that J2EE has way too many acronyms and abbreviations to remember! (Bookmark to remember: JavaIdioms.)

The sweet irony: Scott McNealy: “People are just absolutely going nuts with the complexity of the current computing environment. A recent study shows that about 10% of IT costs are hardware, 10% software, and the rest administration and training.” Precisely

1. AS Russel Beattie points out, what Java gives you is CHOICE. There is not one single language out there that matches the breadth and width of APIs available to Java, and the good developer knows what to use for what particular problem.

   http://www.russellbeattie.com/notebook/1004344.html

   also:

   http://www.freeroller.net/page/kalimantan/20030909#java_lobby_love_it_or

   And truth be told, Java is still the platform to beat since it looks like C# and VB.NET have fallen and are having a hard time getting up:

   http://www.freeroller.net/page/kalimantan/20030921#net_popularity_tapering_off
   

   Posted by: A. San Juan on September 22, 2003 07:49 PM