31 Responses to “Why I still love Java”

1. Antti-Ville Tuunainen Says:
   November 28th, 2007 at 7:50 pm

   It kinda bugs me that you lump all the “scripting languages” together. There is easily more difference between python and php than java and php.

   > There are things you can do in Java, relatively easily, that are going to be much much much tougher in these scripting languages.

   Name one.

   > And Java is an easy and clean enough language.

   There is no such thing as clean enough. In the real world, if there is a competitive chance to be had by using a cleaner language, it must be taken, because if you don’t, and your competitor does, you are toast.

2. Nazmul Idris Says:
   November 28th, 2007 at 8:14 pm

   Agreed about lumping scripting languages under one category – it’s not fair to do that. But my point was to say that scripting languages aren’t displacing java anytime soon for the things that java does best.

   As for you 2nd point, this is what I name – build me a desktop app written in a scripting language with a 2d and 3d based user interface, that works on all platforms, that you don’t have to type a URL in, or know about how to locate a file on your computer (as part of the user experience). Make it so that this desktop app is multi-threaded and can process service calls in the background (soap, xmlrpc, corba, .net. etc), while supporting the ability to run in offline mode (while a network connection is not available).

   As for your 3rd point, I don’t understand your argument – please elaborate. “Clean enough” is a matter of personal taste. What’s clean for one person may be a mess for another. Different people are productive in different environments. People’s proficiency with a language and environment has more to do with producing better and more competitive products than the academic assessment of the quality of a language… and in the ‘real world’ people who can’t code use mediocre tools to pump out utter drivel that is considered ’software’… in the ‘real world’ all bets are off

3. Andrew Blake Says:
   November 28th, 2007 at 9:55 pm

   Seems if you want to develop a multi platform desktop application don’t use a web scripting language, use java. If you want to develop a web application use a web scripting language, not java. As far as IDE’s for php look at eclipse and phpDesigner 2008.

4. Nazmul Idris Says:
   November 28th, 2007 at 10:41 pm

   Thanks for the pointers to the IDEs… I will check them out.

   What’s wrong with using Java for web apps? Gmail for example is written in Java and GWT for the ajax client… tons of enterprise apps (that are web based) from app servers, ESBs, web service runtime intermediaries, registries, repositories, etc. are all written in Java… I don’t understand this mindset that all of a sudden Java sucks for web apps?! Most of the app servers in use are all Java based… Hell, even parts of Adobe CS3 are written in Java . You have a choice of using GWT, Servlets, JSPs, JSF, etc. and a whole host of other frameworks that are available to make small, medium, and large scale web apps… you don’t have to use EJBs if you don’t like them .

5. Nazmul Idris Says:
   November 28th, 2007 at 10:52 pm

   http://bluebones.net/2005/04/does-anyone-love-java/

6. Andrew Blake Says:
   November 29th, 2007 at 5:09 pm

   Don’t get me wrong, you can use Java to do web apps, in fact recently they have started to make it easier and easier with frameworks etc and plugins to the ide’s etc – it’s just that I think there is a time and a place for web scripting languages. For example consuming a web service – in php it’s one line of code versus Java pain in the ass fall over at a bad character wsdl parsing class generation approach. It’s a prime example of something actually designed to do the job hence making it easy and quick to do versus the java approach, yes you can do it, but why waste your time …. life’s too short for Java

   I use both languages, when i need a strongly typed, easily maintained by multiple coders, write once run anywhere application java is your man but the sheer speed of development and simplicity of web scripting languages for web apps makes java have to jump though some more hoops before i use it for that too.

   An analogy is the multitool penknife type thingy versus a screwdriver. If you want to screw in a screw, sure, you can use the multitool but you have to work harder opening it up and finding the right screwdriver bit etc but during that you can tell people about all the other stuff it does but really it’s easier to just use a screwdriver – it’s the way forward.

7. Nazmul Idris Says:
   November 29th, 2007 at 6:27 pm

   What product or toolkit or API did you use to create and consume web services? Java has excellent support for web services, and with Java6 they have made it easier to blur the lines between a local function call and a web service function call. Using annotations, you can take methods and expose them as web services. The Java 6 VM takes care of publishing the WSDL and binding the endpoint, etc.

   You might have had issues with the toolkit that you’re using… perhaps there’s better ones out there. Amazon used a Java SOAP stack (made by a company called Systinet (these people originally wrote Netbeans), which has since been acquired by HP) years ago, when they first started offering up web services (http://amazon.com/aws)… so I disagree with you that Java is not a good option for building and consuming web services. In fact, most of the security appliances, ESBs, registries, repositories, app servers, and runtime intermediaries in the SOA world are written in Java and they proxy access to web services written in various languages, and hosted in many different environments (windows, linux, unix, etc). I’ve used products like Amberpoint and ALSB for web services, and it was easy as crap to write a web service, consume it, and attach runtime and security policy to it, WITHOUT writing a single line of code. And it’s possible to manage versions and attach all kinds of routing rules. When you get into a full blown ESB, you can do much more without writing code… there are plenty of OSS products out there as well for Java, if you don’t to buy licenses for this enterprise software… And this is not counting support in lots of Java IDEs for web services. By the way, a lot of the web service testing tools from major vendors are all written in Java. Java has first class support for web services, and has always had it!

   I agree with you, that various languages and tools have their place. People are free to choose whatever they want to build what they want. And it’s great to see that there are so many options available. And all the competition makes it so that we can enjoy better tools and languages and platforms over time. So I’m not suggesting that everything needs to be done in Java . However, I love Java, and find that I can build solid service and web enabled infrastructure and apps.

8. Nick Brown Says:
   November 30th, 2007 at 11:57 am

   Nazmul,
   PHP is not representative of all scripting languages, thus your use of it in an argument that all scripting languages are inferior to Java is really not valid. In fact most of your complaints are specific to PHP, not scripting languages in general. It is a younger language, so of course its tooling and documentation are going to be worse. From what I know of it it is fairly specific to web applications, so of course its going to be worse at developing desktop apps. Learn a language like Python (and by learn, I mean really learn, not just spend a day or two reading through the tutorials) and then tell me there are things that you can do much easier in Java than in a scripting language.

9. Nazmul Idris Says:
   November 30th, 2007 at 1:23 pm

   Nick, I’m not saying scripting languages suck. I love the fact that programmers have so many choices. I’m just saying that because I got to use something different than Java, it gave me some perspective on how awesome Java is… something I’d forgotten in the years that I’ve been using it. Don’t get so defensive about scripting languages, I’m not attacking them .

   I’m a firm believer in using the right tool for the job… and Python has it’s place… even in the Java world. For eg, Google’s GWT uses Python to generate all kinds of build configuration stuff…

   The reason I wrote this article is because I’m sick and tired of stupid people whining about how Java is going to die at the hands of the latest scripting language of the day.

10. Masud Idris Says:
    November 30th, 2007 at 1:58 pm

    Hi Nick,

    I agree with you that PHP is not representative of scripting languages. PHP does seem to be a fairly targeted language and as such has its limitations. I have done a fair bit of coding in Python, mostly for server side scripting, and automating large numbers of tasks. I have tried to do more with Python, but in all honesty, if the project requires more than quick and dirty solutions, I wouldn’t use Python.

    I am unsure of how you define easy when you ask whether things are easier in Java that in scripting languages. If you mean doing simple things in fewer lines of code, then you were probably correct before the release of Java 5. Things like Generics, autoboxing, the new iterators (for loops), Enums, and the Executor framework have changed the way I write Java code. The new Enums are especially cool. If you don’t know what they are, I highly recommend you learn them, they will change your life Also, the folks at Sun are hardly standing still. With Java 7, we will see the release of features such as Closures. That too will change the way people write Java code. And that is all stuff that is in the standard JRE.

    If by easy you are talking about how easy it is to write robust, heavily multi-threaded enterprise ready applications, then Python doesn’t even enter the picture. Doing that in Java itself is easier than in Python. But there are also fantastic Open Source libraries out there, like all the Apache stuff, that make development of these types of applications a relative breeze.

    If by easy you are talking about how easy it is to write a heavily multi-threaded, internet connected, application with a rich user interface, then Python doesn’t enter the picture either. Using Swing, or the Open Source Swing X libraries, and the Java 2D API will allow you to do all that, and ensure that it is cross platform If you don’t care so much about cross platform, or are worried about bulk, you can always code in C/C++, or for Mac developers, use Objective C and the fancy new Core Animations framework. Or you can use C#, .NET, and WPF.

    So at the end of the day, I would argue, that if you learned Java, and I mean really learned it, not just spend a day or two reading through tutorials, you would find that there are a lot of things that you can do much easier in Java than in a scripting language

    Thanks,
    Masud

11. Jorge Diaz Tambley Says:
    November 30th, 2007 at 2:20 pm

    well, since IBM is backing PHP and since Microsoft is also doing that http://www.theinquirer.net/en/inquirer/news/2004/07/18/php-50-goes-for-microsofts-asp-dot-net-jugular
    http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,2001857,00.asp

    I think it would be wise to invest some time learning it.

12. Nazmul Idris Says:
    November 30th, 2007 at 2:33 pm

    Jorge: and IBM and Google are not backing Java? . Google is a HUGE user of Java… and so is IBM

13. Masud Idris Says:
    November 30th, 2007 at 2:38 pm

    Hi Jorge,

    We did invest a little bit of time learning PHP. If you hadn’t noticed, this blog is rolled out in PHP I don’t think anyone here is saying that PHP or other scripting languages shouldn’t exist. Just that they all have their places.

    – Masud

14. Nick Brown Says:
    November 30th, 2007 at 3:04 pm

    Nazmul,
    When you argue things like “There are things you can do in Java, relatively easily, that are going to be much much much tougher in these scripting languages” even though you apparently have never used a real scripting language (other than PHP), most people would consider that attacking scripting languages.
    And I’m not saying Java is dying either. But it has become the new Cobol. It is a (if not the) standard language for the business domain and thus has a lot of legacy infrastructure build around it, but it is hardly the best language out there.

    Masud,
    I first started using Java around 8 years ago, so I would say I am experienced in the language. I am familiar with the improvements being (slowly) made, but they are largely made irrelevant due to the fact that most Java apps out there have to work with a lot of legacy code that was written in the pre-5.0 days. And to be honest, isn’t the fact that features like generics (without which you lose all advantages of static typing) and autoboxing (without which “Integer i” and “int i” are two incompatible types) were not present from the beginning an argument against Java?
    Yes, Java has a lot of libraries written for it. That is its main strength. But so does Python. And if you are using Jython (or other JVM-based dynamic languages like Groovy or JRuby), you can in fact use all those Java libraries in your application.
    And there are plenty of applications out there written in Python that consist of much more than “quick and dirty solutions”. I will admit, when you first start using something like Python, you may not feel comfortable doing much more than that it it. But once you get accustomed to developing in a dynamic language, that quickly changes.

15. Nazmul Idris Says:
    November 30th, 2007 at 3:31 pm

    Hi Nick,

    I said “There are things you can do in Java, relatively easily, that are going to be much much much tougher in these scripting languages” – because it’s true. I even provided a use case (rich internet desktop app, and web app, and mobile app), so that there is some context for my statement. It’s not attacking anything. It’s the truth. This blog is written in PHP and I didn’t use a java blog since I really like Wordpress. How am I attacking something, just because I love something else?

    And what’s wrong with being the new Cobol? . You say ‘Java… hardly the best language out there’. I disagree. It is one of the best languages out there for what you can do with it. Have you programmed anything substantial in VHDL, Assembly, C, Cobol, Fortran, or C++? Have you experienced the clunky syntax of Objective C? For large systems, Java is a god send! So I’m not going to back down from my defense of Java. It’s a damned good language and platform, with a healthy OSS ecosystem in place…

    Java is also quite dynamic. Why are people stymied by strict typing so much – what, people can’t design? Are you aware of byte code manipulation libraries? And dynamic proxy generation? Java classloading over the network is an awesome feature that most people don’t leverage. And just because old organizations are unwilling to upgrade to the latest Java, how is that Java’s fault? I’m using every single new feature of Java 6 and I love it! It’s a great platform for what I want to build… I’m really looking forward to Java7… Java RULES!!!

    Also, Java 7 will have closures (in some form), so you can have your pseudo function pointers, and procedural business logic, interspersed with object oriented stuff. Again – Java RULES! And you have OSS rules engines that you can embed in your VM so that you don’t even have to write all your business logic in code… you can do lots of stuff declaratively… all good stuff… with the world going network and service-enabled, Java is more relevant than ever.

    How soon people forget that Java made it so easy to connect to networks and build services… That’s was around since Java 1. They’ve since optimized their IO stuff with NIO… and Sun is going great things with keeping the language competitive, and as minimalist as it can be.

16. Masud Idris Says:
    November 30th, 2007 at 4:06 pm

    Hi Nick,

    I think when Nazmul was talking about scripting languages, he meant languages that were desinged initially for small scipting purposes but then used for more, like PHP. PHP was designed intially designed as a set of C binaries to replace a bunch of Perl scripts and then evolved from there. Python is as much a scripting language as C is a scripting language, even though one of Python’s primary use in industry today seems to be as a scripting language. It is a “for-real” (if there is such a thing ) programming language that happens to be interpreted instead of compiled and therefore lends itself well to scripts.

    Also, “best language” is a subjective term. One person’s beautious (sic) language is another person’s pile of dog shit.

    In response to your comments to me:
    How is the fact that Java has features now that it didn’t before an argument against Java? Since when is listening to user gripes or seeing mistakes and rectifying them a bad thing? Sure, maybe it sucks for someone that has a lot of old Java code, but how is it a bad thing moving forward?

    As for legacy code, Java has been around for a while, and though the changes made in Java 5 were drastic, these sorts of changes are vital to keep the language relevant moving forwards. Whenever you make these kinds of changes, you face legacy code issues. This is mitigated somewhat by the fact that all new VMs are fully backwards compatible. But people would face much worse if they were to attempt to move away from Java. The changes are vital to people who are producing new code. The changes make Java a viable choice when compared to other programming languages.

    I have been using Java since JDK 1.3 and though I have a bunch of code that I have written already that won’t work, but I am ecstatic at the new features. All of my new projects are written in Java 5. Also, a large portion of the Open Source Java projects have also made their code bases Java 5 compliant. One immediate example that comes to mind is the Apache Jakarta Commons Project.

    If there was a way to use Python libraries in Java then we would really be talking If there is a way that I am unaware of, I would be happy to check it out.

    As for Java being the next COBOL? It might have replaced COBOL as the primary/standard language in the business domain, but that is where the similarities with COBOL end. The problem with COBOL was that it was a horrendous mess of a language not that it had somehow dominated the business domain Edsger Dijkstra said that the use of COBOL cripples the mind and that teaching it should have been made a criminal offense. I don’t hear too many people saying that about Java

    – Masud

17. Jorge Diaz Tambley Says:
    November 30th, 2007 at 4:25 pm

    Well, Google hired Guido Van Rossum

    http://www.python.org/~guido/

    so it looks like they want to do some python

18. Nazmul Idris Says:
    November 30th, 2007 at 4:34 pm

    Hi Jorge,

    LOL. It does seem like they want to do more with Python . Maybe they will do some kind of a java to python language converter . Like what they did for JavaScript with GWT .

19. Nazmul Idris Says:
    November 30th, 2007 at 4:36 pm

    I appreciate all the comments on this post. Thanks for all your participation .

20. Masud Idris Says:
    November 30th, 2007 at 4:39 pm

    Hi Jorge,

    I have seen Google using Python for scripts to generate Android projects. Do you know if they are using Python for anything outside of simple automation scripts?

    – Masud

21. Nick Brown Says:
    December 1st, 2007 at 9:12 am

    Nazmul,
    Its perfectly easy to create any of those in a scripting language (you just might have to use something other than PHP). And yes, Java is better than many older languages, and yes, it is constantly evolving. But you have to stop and think, is there something already out there that does what Java is trying to evolve into? Python already supports closures, and doesn’t need a new language enhancement that will take another 5 years to reach adoption levels high enough to justify using it. And if the only reason you are using Java is because of the wealth of libraries it has, Jython provides you a way of getting to those while writing in a much more powerful language (powerful in that you can do much more with less code).

    Masud,
    I agree, the term “scripting language” is misleading (I prefer the term dynamic language), but Python and Ruby certainly fall into that definition (in fact, Ruby was mentioned in the original blog).
    As to why the fact that generics and autoboxing were needed is a bad thing, well those seem to be fairly obvious flaws in the language from the start. Yet it took 5 revisions for them to finally be added. And the result ended up being rather hacked up in order to support backwards compatibility, especially with regard to generics. The fact that they are required to be backwards compatible really limits how far Java can evolve. It may not be a problem you can blame Sun for as it happens to every language after its been around for a while (though note again that Python and Ruby are both older than Java), but it really hurts the argument that Java can just evolve into whatever it needs to be. At some point as a software engineer you have to just stop and learn a new language, just as we did with Java a decade ago.
    Oh, and it certainly is possible to access Python code in Java with Jython (assuming that Python code is compatible with the latest release of Jython, last I checked it was a few releases behind C Python but I know they have made a lot of progress in the last couple of years), but what most people want to do is access Java code within a Python program, which of course is also possible. Many have argued that the JVM’s support for scripting (or dynamic) languages being added on like Jython, JRuby, Scala, and Groovy is Java (the platform)’s most compelling feature.

    As for Python at Google, here is an a blog entry about the use of Python at Google: http://panela.blog-city.com/python_at_google_greg_stein__sdforum.htm
    Note that it (along with Java and C++) is one of the 3 “official” Google languages and is the primary language in several services such as code.google.com and google groups.

22. Dake Says:
    December 1st, 2007 at 12:42 pm

    You learned PHP last night?

    Wow.

    LOL.

23. Masud Idris Says:
    December 1st, 2007 at 5:04 pm

    Hi Nick,

    Thanks for the link to what Google is doing with Python. From the looks of things Google is using Python to create systems management and monitoring software. For the most part, this seems to fall in line with Python’s general use in the industry. Google isn’t using Python for their applications or services. Google seems to be doing that in Java, C++, and even JavaScript and Flash.

    I still don’t see how Java’s choosing to add new features is a bad thing. Perhaps Sun should have added these features sooner, but they did add them. And moving forwards these, and all future additions, will help keep Java relevant. I guess we can agree to disagree on that one.

    At the end of the day it seems that we all are in agreement about at least one thing. That different languages are well suited for different application categories/problem domains.

    – Masud

24. prashant Says:
    December 2nd, 2007 at 5:55 pm

    Nazmul Idris,

    Good post and totally agree with you.Yes Java Rocks!!!!!!!!! and also agree with Masud that That different languages are well suited for different application categories/problem domains.

25. Nazmul Idris Says:
    December 2nd, 2007 at 8:15 pm

    Hi Dake

    My numerous repetitive stress injuries can attest to the sheer amount of time I spend in front of my computer .

    If you’re interested in seeing how I keep going, check out my ergonomic keyboard review – http://developerlife.com/reviews/?p=46

    - Nazmul

26. Nazmul Idris Says:
    December 2nd, 2007 at 8:16 pm

    Hi Prashant

    Thanks for the props! . We appreciate your comments. I checked out your blog… seems like cool stuff, let me know if you want to contribute some tutorials on developerlife.com.

    Thanks,
    Nazmul.

27. Mordan Says:
    December 12th, 2007 at 10:27 am

    Java rules I agree. Can you program PHP on mobile phones?
    Java will not die.

28. Nazmul Idris Says:
    December 12th, 2007 at 10:57 am

    Hi Mordan

    I agree! With Java, you can create software for phones, embedded devices, laptops, desktops, and lots of big machines that run in backoffices running enterprise class software. Almost all enterprise software is written in Java. NASA’s software for the Mars Rover is written in Java (not Python or PHP). You can program Google’s Android with Java. All Google web apps that use GWT use Java.

    I don’t understand where people come off saying silly things like some scripting language of the day will replace it. People must get bored pretty easily. Or people with too much time, and not enough exposure to the ecosystem of software and hardware today make lots of stupid statements! Also, comparing Java to Cobol is silly – in any way! The types of application and problem domains that Java can address weren’t even around when Cobol was made. So silly… take this for example – http://awis.blogspot.com/2007/10/beyond-new-black.html. Talk about taking things totally out of context to the point they are a bunch of meaningless data points on someone’s ‘graph’. What ever happened to looking for information or meaning in data, rather than just a bunch of random noise.

    Thanks for your comment.
    Nazmul

29. Nazmul Idris Says:
    December 26th, 2007 at 12:25 pm

    A good post in a similar vein – http://www.saager.org/2007/12/25/yes-me-too-java-is-too.html

30. Uday Says:
    July 1st, 2008 at 10:01 am

    Java Rocks!

31. kitchenaid food processors Says:
    September 16th, 2009 at 4:13 am

    Hey very nice blog!! Will add to feed reader

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