Moving Past Java
The call to discard Java in favor of lightweight frameworks is
resonating through the web developer community.
By Madhu Siddalingaiah
B ruce Tate discusses the
future of Java and web development in this interview with contributing
editor Madhu Siddalingaiah. Bruce is the author of several programming
books, including
Beyond Java from O'Reilly. In this interview, Bruce
discusses scalable enterprise applications, database-enabled applications,
AJAX and lightweight solutions for web development. He questions whether
Java is still a technology for the masses and discusses the importance of
Spring and Ruby on Rails.
Siddalingaiah: Bruce, you are
among the first Java developers to openly discuss the possibility that
Java will eventually lose it's dominance in the IT market. Do you have any
guess as to when that will happen?
Tate: Keep in mind that I'm suggesting Java will be dead like
COBOL, not dead like Elvis. For the hardest enterprise problems, Java is
safe for at least three to five years--things like sophisticated and
scalable object relational mapping, two phased commit, and the like. Java
is being threatened in a much more common, and I think important space:
how do you build a simple web application that fronts a relational
database? Especially a database schema that you control? This industry
solves this particular problem over and over, and Java's not very good at
it. I think we'll see some significant movement to Ruby on Rails this
year.
| Siddalingaiah: You mention that
Java is moving away from its base. In your opinion, what was that base and
where has it moved?
Tate: When Java started, it was easy to write web applications.
Now, to build a Java application in the lightweight way, you need to learn
servlets, XML, struts, some persistence framework like Hibernate or
iBATIS, and Spring to help glue it all together. That's an oppressive
learning curve. And three years from now, when the state of the art has
changed, you'll have to do it all again. Java's not approachable to the
masses like it once was. |
|
Siddalingaiah: You have some good
things to say about the Ruby language, but can you identify differences in
the nature of Ruby developers vs. Java developers?
Tate: I think we look to solve problems in different ways. In many
ways, the Ruby community is much more pragmatic. The Java community is
obsessed with solving the hardest 10% of a problem, even if that solution
won't get used. The Ruby community focuses on the day-to-day grind, and
automates the things we do most frequently. The language is dynamic and
very adaptable, so Ruby makes it easy to adapt solutions for the last 10%.
To give you just one example, an application built for my customer in Ruby
and Java had 1000 lines of configuration in Java, and only 100 in Ruby.
Next: Web
database applications and Ruby
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Related Opinions "Java
is the SUV of programming tools."
-- Philip Greenspun
"Java, especially enterprise Java, has grown into a complex behemoth that
consists of layer upon layer of complexity."
-- David Geary "Ruby
on Rails today looks poised to eat Java's mindshare on the web tier. If
not Rails, then something else."
-- Jason Hunter |
