[Epix]

Why should i use java? It seems slow. Not to much is written in it, but still people swear by it. Why should i be using it? What does it have to offer ofver Perl, PHP or Python??

[nekeno12]

Forget about Java. It's a horrible language. If Java never existed, there would be fewer SPY-WARE attacks to innocent internet user. It's also an easy language for the user to TURN-OFF. Not exactly a fool proof language.

I myself fully believe in the power of PHP.

[Rob_Darkins]

I totally disagree.
Although I'm a Java Developer myself, and thus would say this, I believe that Java is one of the greatest languages.
You can do SOO much with it. And can run it on any JVM! (Any OS with the JRE installed).

It's pretty easy once you understand the basics, and it's fun!

PHP is a noob language (but so is; VB, ASP, etc.). Forget that, Java (or web side, JSP) all the way!

[r.D]

[Rob_Darkins]

I'd also like to add, that this year has seen the release of Java 5.0 (or 1.5.0 to the Developers). Which is not only more robust, but soooo much faster and efficient. The only real functionality that is holding it behind compared to more native languages, such as C, is the trigonometric functions (which are only really used for things like graphs and other graphics-based apps [such as games]).

But it's come a long way -- and I'm looking forward to the next major release.

[sszettella]

To say that not too much is written in java would be terribly uninformed. One major java project (Eclipse) received more than 1 million downloads in the 41 days following the last major release (3.1).

The fact that Eclipse is primarilly used as a java development environment (or IDE), clearly speaks to the fact that java is more than just a small, seldom used language.

Fact is that most large companies today - banks, auto companies, you name it - are running mission critical line of business applications written in Java. If you want to land a good job in corporate IT today, Java remains your best bet.

Every major software company still alive (save for Micro$oft) is betting heavily on Java, including IBM, Borland, BEA and Computer Associates (CA).

I personally use Java, PHP and ASP. They all have their place. Not all of us will live in a place where Java belongs, but where it fits, it is clearly the best solution.

Also, it is not clear to me how one can "turn off" java. Hop on over to bea.com and tell me how you can turn that off.

Also not sure how one can come to the conclusion that java is slow. I don't believe eTrade.com would agree. Not sure how to turn them off either.

As far a spyware, the fact is that most spyware is NOT java at all, but rather c and c++. Just like most "viruses" and "worms" are written in VB by high school kids. It is not the programming language, but rather the programmer, who creates spyware. Any language can be used for malicious purposes.

I, too fully believe in the power of PHP - for non-transactional, lightweight, simple systems. PHP remains a long way from legacy systems integration, transaction management, asynchronous messaging, and many of the other concepts that have been designed into the java platform.

If you have something serious to do - like run a company built around a system - PHP would not be my first choice.

If you have a website to build for a hobby, a small business, university project or small database application, PHP will get you there much quicker.

As in all things when it comes to technology - it just depends.

[nugensoftware]

lol the java developer calling the php developer a noob. (JSP is not Java, it uses the java syntax to script server side executed pages)(saying JSP is java is like saying visual basic is ASP, similar but not the same.)

sorry last time i checked Java wasn't running 47% of the internet.

the truth about java:

1. ) it's slow.
2. ) it has bad portability from O/S to O/S
3. ) it has to run a interpreter in the background outside the web browser
4. ) it requires an application framework installation that is about 20 megs, and is known to hang on many machines and hang many web browsers.
5. ) the development cycle is long and expensive and only really works if your java developers work for a salary rate.

i keep all my java code in the same cvs as my fortran and RPG code, its outdated, it's slow, and it requires the end users machine to be configured to run the applets.

the first thing i do when i see the "grey box" and the 'coffee' cup show up in the browser is close the window.

a million developers could download an IDE but that doesn't make the language or its produced software anymore useful. i would be interested in seeing 1 major website running a multitude of java on their site (other than JSP pages which is pseudo java).

[sszettella]

I submit the following excerpt about a little company you might have heard about that chose java:

http://www.baselinemag.com/article2/...,659060,00.asp

"In moving to any of these three choices—IBM or the two Sun-backed options— eBay would be picking Java over C++ as its Net programming language. "EBay would tell you they've moved from not knowing a lot about Java to running possibly the largest J2EE site in the world," says IBM VP Willy Chiu."

If you read more than the first few sentences of the article, you will find that a very large portion of the eBay software infrastructure is built on java,

Oh, and one more little company you might have heard of:

http://java.sun.com/developer/techni...e/limoore.html

There are scores more.

To say that JSP is pseudo-java is to say that a servlet is not java. JSP is server-side java. Server-side java is possibly the single most useful implementaion of java, just as server-side PHP is possibly the most useful implemention of PHP.

If you are not aware, when a JSP page is requested (for the first time) from a servlet specification compliant Java EE server (Tomcat, JBoss, Gerinomo, Weblogic, Websphere), the server will parse the .jsp file and create a .java source file, it then calls upon the java compiler to produce the bytecode , and then resulting .class file is exectued within the server's JVM (or runtime).

Interpreting this process as "pseudo-java" because the inventors of the JSP specification simply allowed the programmer to mix HTML with java code, hardly makes sense. It's a lot like calling most of the PHP we see on the web (including this forum) "pseudo-PHP" because there's some HTML in the source files.

There are good and bad uses for Java (is there an echo in here?). Browser side java, I agree, is bad -- quite bad in fact. At this point, all client side java is a bit of a disaster. This particular flavor of java is slow, and has considerable problems, as you've pointed out. Sorry to hear that your company made a bad decision by using Java Applets. Perhaps that justifies your wholesale rejection of the programming language.

Keep in mind that this horrible idea of an interpreted language and a seperate runtime / framework is so bad that even Microsoft is betting their own future on it. Have you heard of .NET? The .NET CLR (common language runtime) is orders of magnitude larger than the Java Virtual Machine, and does basically the same thing. C# (Microsoft's "new" language) is in direct response Java. Ironically, the Microsoft CLR will only run on Windows machines.

I suppose you didn't get to reading my entire post before labeling me a "java developer". At the risk of repeating myself:

I personally use Java, PHP and ASP. They all have their place. Not all of us will live in a place where Java belongs, but where it fits, it is clearly the best solution.

I might also suggest that the casual reader learn their own "truth" about java. Truth is, as I've said before, it depends. Everything must be viewed in the appropriate context. I, for one, do not claim to be the authoritative source for the truth.

[King Coder]

Originally Posted by nekeno12

Forget about Java. It's a horrible language. If Java never existed, there would be fewer SPY-WARE attacks to innocent internet user. It's also an easy language for the user to TURN-OFF. Not exactly a fool proof language.

I myself fully believe in the power of PHP.

You have no idea what you're talking about.

lol the java developer calling the php developer a noob. (JSP is not Java, it uses the java syntax to script server side executed pages)(saying JSP is java is like saying visual basic is ASP, similar but not the same.)

Stupid assumption, but whatever.

1. ) it's slow.

Depends on the programmer. You obviously have no idea that Java uses almost the same technology to run as some of the languages on the .NET framework.

2. ) it has bad portability from O/S to O/S

Java, bad portability? You must either suck at programming or not know what you're talking about.

[michaelbyrd]

I LOVE JAVA
you only need to write the code once and use ti through different systems

[King Coder]

Yep, Java's a nice language. Those that 'diss' the language either don't know it, or don't know it's capabilities.