It seems that lately lots of writers have been bashing Java. Some people seem to think that Java has stagnated, and that the "hyper-enthusiasts" have left. Well, the rest of us are just quietly coding on a platform that is more exciting than ever. Other technologies like Ruby, PHP, .NET, or AJAX might get more hype and acclaim lately, but hype aside, Java still produces the majority of innovation in the software profession.
Certainly Sourceforge is not the final measure, but it's a reasonable reality check. Anyway, you'll find 17300+ Java projects, the most of any language. That's more than PHP (12675), Ruby (425), and .NET (3094 C#, 347 VB.Net) combined.
Because of its prominence, Java gets a lot of attention and with it much criticism, some of it valid. What many may not realize is that some big breakthroughs have arrived and that the Java development landscape is solving important problems. Let's take a view of where Java is going to go in the next year or two as these ideas gain traction.
The first big arena of innovation is the addition of scripting support. Some people rightly claim Ruby or Python is better the Java for some tasks. Groovy and Beanshell solve these same problems and will become a standard (in the JSR sense) part of the Java stack. Each offers something better than standalone scripting. Both integrate into a truly mixed environment with compiled bytecode and interpreted scripts interoperating smoothly. Beanshell's syntax offers as little surprise as possible for the Java developer and Groovy gives a Ruby-like syntactic efficiency, but can also be compiled to pure bytecode and reused seamlessly, a big improvement over JRuby or Jython.
Second, the days of heavyweight frameworks are gone. J2EE-style EJBs are out. Now, the lightweight frameworks like Hibernate, Spring, and HiveMind are the future of Java. The heavy Struts of the past is being replaced with two new directions: Struts Shale based on JSF and Struts Ti is a wholesale merge with Webwork. These projects share a common idea that the framework should stay out of the way of your object model. EJB3 takes the same view.
A third major innovation where Java leads is aspect-oriented programming (AOP). AOP will unclutter your code by moving "cross-cutting" concerns like logging and security to transparent method interceptors. AspectJ is the Rolls Royce for AOP, but Spring has lightweight AOP themes as does the new JBoss.
Fourth, the PHP crowd had a legitimate gripe that banging out a simple web page took too much work if you were using JSP and Struts. But our templating solutions like Velocity, Freemarker, and now Groovy don't make you choose between ultralight text generation and powerful mid-tier solutions. Groovlets should make for some rapid servlet solutions. For those people who really like PHP, keep it: Java 1.6 makes it the reference implementation for the new web scripting language bindings, so you can do your web views in PHP and use Java for model and controller.
Finally, Java's traditional strength in the tools arena just keeps increasing. Eclipse is the best IDE on the planet, and it appears that Eclipse has reached critical mass like Ant and JUnit did, in that people simply expect solutions that extend it. Eclipse's team coding capabilities for CVS and Subversion (via the Subclipse plugin) are first-rate. The refactoring and debugging support are top notch. Integration of standard tools like ant, compilers, JUnit, and javadocs are about as good as you can imagine.
So perhaps the hyper-enthusiasts have left and the buzzword mongers will proclaim that Java is dead. If Java is "dead," it's only because it was laid to rest so that a better, lighter, more agile, form of Java could replace it, so Long Live Java!
About Bryan W. Taylor Bryan Taylor is a Senior Software Engineer at Rackspace Managed Hosting based in San Antonio, Texas. He has designed and developed enterprise systems for over 10 years.
Reader Feedback: Page 2 of 2
#6
Donald Fraser commented on 13 Jan 2006
I am a Java advocate, but I have many gripes with the Java language. The sort of gripes I have are similar reasons why Java evolved out of C/C++ in the first place.
For example memory not being released from objects after they have gone out of scope. The Java solution was to remove the responsibility of memory management from the programmer and place it in the JVM. There are many other things that Java improved on in the C/C++ language but there are many more things that the language still lacks.
For example why can I still get null pointer exceptions? Bad programming! This problem can actually be solved by the language. Just take a look at the Eiffel programming language - it pioneered the concept of "design by contract" which solves boundary conditions and assignments to all parameters thus eliminating the null pointer exception problem along with a number of other problems.
How about the super class change method name problem? I change the name of a method in a super class and all the sub-classes that overrode that method are now broken - but my programme still compiles! The Delphi programming language had that one sorted out from day one!
These are just some of the reasons I believe Java has a limited life. Yes I believe Java will be here to stay, just like C and C++ are still with us today but there will come a time when everyone else is using the "other" language simply because its better. Unless of course Java evolves to meet these modern programming concepts, let us hope it does, long live Java!
Google makes extensive use of the Java platform. Large parts of popular Google products are written in Java. We also use Java in many internal systems and products under development.
#3
Anonymous Brave guy commented on 10 Jan 2006
Java has theoretical limitations that mean it will always have difficulty keeping up with a well-optimised C++ program.
And of course, there are still the same fundamental weaknesses in Java's design that there always have been...
Java doesn't have value types, so everything's dynamically allocated by default.
Not everything is an object, so you have boxing overheads even in simple things like containers unless you use generics.
Those generics have only just been introduced into the language, and are a poor imitation of C++ templates, offering few of the advantages that template metaprogramming has been providing to serious, high performance libraries in C++ for a few years now.
Java's floating point model is constrained by its portability requirements -- for a while it was even theoretically impossible for a JVM to meet them, IIRC -- which unavoidably prevents the use of many math optimisations.
I could go on, but I'm getting bored, so I'll leave the record straight enough and stop there.
#2
xtracto commented on 10 Jan 2006
I like Java (as a language) a lot, I have used it for enterprise level applications (supply chain management software) and currently I am using it to make market based simulations.
The wrong thing about Java is the Virtual machine implementation. You can blame Sun for that. If Java is slow, grabs lots of memory and all that it is because of the virtual machine, not because of the language. A language is just a BNF diagram specification which describes the syntax of the program, and all of its reserved words.
What Java needs is a better (less memory and faster) implementation of the libraries it has and the virtual machine to run the programs. As an example, almost everyone who has used C# or any other .NET program can see the applications run quite fast.
#1
Contrary Opinion commented on 10 Jan 2006
Wasn't it Peter Yared who in BusinessWeek last month was saying that developers far and wide are creating a new generation of Internet-based applications with LAMP and related technologies rather than with Java?
Sure, Yared is an AJAX fan. But when someone who was previously at Sun and who led
the J2SE team, delivering JDK 1.2, 1.3, and 1.4 says something like this, you kinda can't help paying attention.
ash wrote: reply to #20:
hey maciej, i faced the very same problem that you had faced(even i had a athlon1700 +512 mb ram). but after upgraded my ram to 1 gb, eclipse runs smoothly. eclipse is a ram guzzler for sure, but its necessity undermines everything else.
Maciej Grela wrote: Hmm, Eclipse is the best. I`d say s/best/beast/ . Ever tried to run it ? For me its the sloooowest software i`ve used. And I have an athlon1700 + 512 MB. I have yet to see a fast and slick java application which has nice features and doesn`t eat my whole ram.
Hal Arnold wrote: Nice article; but one niggling point: your assertion that Eclipse "is the best IDE on the planet". Those of us that use Idea would beg to differ.
Rick O'Shay wrote: Classic JDJ article: a misinformed pile of google scrapings that appears to have been stitched together at the last minute. The future of Java is EJB 3.0 and Java 5.0 with Facelets and JSF. EJB 3.0 embodies Hibernate. Java 5.0 supports aspect-oriented features. JSF replaces Struts and Facelets replace Tapestry and other frameworks with a standard. What these technologies have in common is the mind-boggling simplicity of using them. If you want to write about the future of Java you should look at the new features and where they are going with it.
Rick O'Shay wrote: Classic JDJ article: a misinformed pile of google scrapings that appears to have been stitched together at the last minute. The future of Java is EJB 3.0 and Java 5.0 with Facelets and JSF. EJB 3.0 embodies Hibernate. Java 5.0 supports aspect-oriented features. JSF replaces Struts and Facelets replace Tapestry and other frameworks with a standard. What these technologies have in common is the mind-boggling simplicity of using them. If you want to write about the future of Java you should look at the new features and where they are going with it.
Bryan Taylor wrote: More responses from the author...
Several people take issue with my point that "Eclipse is the best IDE on the planet". No one who objected had any rebutal to the reason I gave why Eclipse is the best: it has reached critical mass as an open source extensible platform whose community is assuring that all important tools work with it.
Anonymous Kuhirt threw us a barb: "afraid of .NET, are we?" Yes, very much so. For two primary reasons: (a) vendor lock-in and (b) security. The java community has embraced open standards and open source, and Microsoft simply doesn't offer that. I don't see much traffic crossing that divide in either direction.
Finally, some people seem to think that because I'm pro-Java, I advocate it as the one-size fits all language. Of course, I never said that. In fact, my first point about groovy and beanshell filling a gap pretty much guarantees that I don'...
Disappointed wrote: Nothing wrong with the article except that it has no stuff just fluff. Everything is old news and provide no meaty support for personal opinions. I think its recieving so much flake not because people disagree generally to the stand points, but because we really so seldom see such a unprofessional article being written.
Reader wrote: Eclipse the best IDE on the Planet??? Its great, but I wouldn't say best. Personally I prefer IDEA, even thought I use eclipse on a day to day basis (More than Idea) because its the company standard. Some people think Visual Studio is King, which is also justifiable. I don't wanna get into a fanatic religious war on IDEs, but I'm just annoyed by unsupported claims. It totally takes away the credibility of the whole article (even though the article is not related).
Anonymous Kuhirt wrote: "Java remains at the top today and for at least then next few years"
This is exacly the self-reassurance I was talking about. The "rejoice - we're at the top" feeling (afraid of .NET, are we?). However, being at the "top" does lead only one way: down
(BTW: there are areas where COBOL is still at the "top", too. Not because of technological merits and active development, but because of huge amounts of code written in the times where people thought about COBOL like you think about Java nowadays).
As someone else said once (I forgot the name): "If your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail."
Likewise if everything you know and care about is Java, you have to treat every task within the limits of Java. However, I can easily name you tasks where Java would be far from a good choice - especially if you step out of this year's hype word collection (AJAX, Spring, etc.):...
Bryan Taylor wrote: As the author... I'd like to respond to some of the comments.
Anonymous Kuhirt wrote "Only people admitting that there are shortcomings and who are willing to look over the (Java) fence are able to keep Java from becoming the next Cobol)." It appears he didn't understand that this is the theme of the article. Java remains at the top today and for at least then next few years precisely because the Java community has seen and successfully addressed shortcomings.
Mr. Frustrated with the Writer wrote "The entire article focused primarily on web development and minor advances in the development experience." Only my fourth point and arguably half of part of my second point concern web development. My discussion of Groovy, Beanshell, Hibernate, Spring, Hivemind, AspectJ, and Eclipse do not concern web development.
He also wrote "AJAX is *not* a technology, it's a technique, and one, a...
Anonymous Kuhirt wrote: Sorry, this article is just stupid. E. g. the
"Eclipse is the best IDE"
opinion.
No matter how great something is, there is no "best IDE" the same way as there is no "best language". Anybody who is seriously thinking that there is only one true way for every problem on the planet can't be taken serious and should stop littering websites with his wishfull thinking ..
(I am a software engineer and use Java most of the time. I see such non-sense "XY is the best" comments as the self-reassurance of blind followers of XY
and most of the time it is a sure sign that XY's best days lay in the past. Only people admitting that there are shortcomings and who are willing to look over the (Java) fence are able to keep Java from becoming the next Cobol).
Mr. Frustrated with the Writer wrote: The entire article focused primarily on web development and minor advances in the development experience. If nothing else, this would suggest that critic's complaint that innovation has left the language is true! All of the big development technologies and techniques that have become part of the Java world (Hibernate, Spring) have been ported quickly to other languages, leveling the court as far as language-supporting technologies are concerned. I was happy to see the changes that 1.5 brought along, especially generics since that's been a problem that had been solved far too long ago to leave out of Java. But as far as breakthroughs are concerned, I'm with the critics on this one. If I had to pose one challenge to the Java world, it would be to free us developers of some of the limitations of Java that don't exist with other languages; i.e. running in a JVM, we get access to such a lim...
Donald Fraser wrote: I am a Java advocate, but I have many gripes with the Java language. The sort of gripes I have are similar reasons why Java evolved out of C/C++ in the first place.
For example memory not being released from objects after they have gone out of scope. The Java solution was to remove the responsibility of memory management from the programmer and place it in the JVM. There are many other things that Java improved on in the C/C++ language but there are many more things that the language still lacks.
For example why can I still get null pointer exceptions? Bad programming! This problem can actually be solved by the language. Just take a look at the Eiffel programming language - it pioneered the concept of "design by contract" which solves boundary conditions and assignments to all parameters thus eliminating the null pointer exception problem along with a number of other problems.
How abo...
Li Moore wrote: Google makes extensive use of the Java platform. Large parts of popular Google products are written in Java. We also use Java in many internal systems and products under development.
Anonymous Brave guy wrote: Java has theoretical limitations that mean it will always have difficulty keeping up with a well-optimised C++ program.
And of course, there are still the same fundamental weaknesses in Java's design that there always have been...
Java doesn't have value types, so everything's dynamically allocated by default.
Not everything is an object, so you have boxing overheads even in simple things like containers unless you use generics.
Those generics have only just been introduced into the language, and are a poor imitation of C++ templates, offering few of the advantages that template metaprogramming has been providing to serious, high performance libraries in C++ for a few years now.
Java's floating point model is constrained by its portability requirements -- for a while it was even theoretically impossible for a JVM to meet them, IIRC -- which unavoidably prevents the use of...
xtracto wrote: I like Java (as a language) a lot, I have used it for enterprise level applications (supply chain management software) and currently I am using it to make market based simulations.
The wrong thing about Java is the Virtual machine implementation. You can blame Sun for that. If Java is slow, grabs lots of memory and all that it is because of the virtual machine, not because of the language. A language is just a BNF diagram specification which describes the syntax of the program, and all of its reserved words.
What Java needs is a better (less memory and faster) implementation of the libraries it has and the virtual machine to run the programs. As an example, almost everyone who has used C# or any other .NET program can see the applications run quite fast.
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It seems that lately lots of writers have been bashing Java. Some people seem to think that Java has stagnated, and that the "hyper-enthusiasts" have left. Well, the rest of us are just quietly coding on a platform that is more exciting than ever. Other technologies like Ruby, PHP, .NET, or AJAX might get more hype and acclaim lately, but hype aside, Java still produces the majority of innovation in the software profession.
CloudBench Applications, Inc. announced its financial results for the three months and nine months ending September 30, 2009. All amounts are stated in Canadian dollars unless otherwise noted. Revenues from BasicGov, the Company's cloud computing solution for local government, gr...
The new contract is an industry first, with CSC being the first Microsoft partner to lead and win a cloud computing services agreement of this scale. Under terms of the contract, CSC will provide Royal Mail Group's 30,000 employees with access to new IT services using Microsoft's...
Operates in over 170 countries and is one of the world’s leading providers of communications solutions and services. Richard Tarboton talks for MeettheBoss.TV on his role as Head of Energy & Carbon for BT and what they are doing towards reducing carbon emissions.
CA is going to put its Agile Planner software on salesforce.com’s Force.com platform in the first half to accelerate development time and give users visibility over their development initiatives to reduce time-to-market. Customers are supposed to be able to accelerate the deploym...
Despite its uncertain fate Sun soldiers on. Monday it trotted out a cloud-based multiplatform desktop as a service for K-12 and community colleges that can run Windows, the Mac OS, Linux and Solaris applications to nearly any client device, including its own Sun Ray thin clients....
