Excellent. Well written!
-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Phelps [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Wednesday, July 25, 2001 12:59 PM
To: JRun-Talk
Subject: RE: Newbie question/Debate
I have 6 years of experience developing Microsoft Windows applications
followed by 3 1/2 years of Java experience. I currently work for a
consulting firm that develops applications in both Java / EJB / JSP and
Microsoft C++ / VB / ASP. My experience has been as follows:
1. Java applications are easier to write than C++ but somewhat harder than
VB. I think that C# looks to have about the same complexity level as Java.
I am less sure about VB.NET.
2. Java applications have better error handling, ( via exceptions ), than
either C++ or VB, (especially C++), and are therefore more robust. I have
seen marked differences in the maintenance time required for MS projects
versus Java projects.
3. One of the huge advantages of Java is the large amount of work that has
been done for you already. There are thousands of classes in Sun's
libraries as well as open source libraries that will do just about anything.
If you take the time to go looking, you will save a lot of development time
by working with Java. It will be years before C# will even come close to
the amount of open source code that is available in Java.
4. My experience has been that Java server based applications, (not
necessarily client applications), tend to scale better than VB or C++
applications running on the same platform. Obviously this depends on how
well each application is written. We have rarely written the same
application using both languages so it is hard to compare apples to apples.
We have seen enough performance problems on the MS side, however, that we
recommend it to our customers only when the project is small to medium
sized. We always use Java for large projects.
5. You've heard it a million times but Java's support for many platforms is
extremely important. MS applications cannot scale very high without
requiring huge amounts of hardware and personnel to manage it. I can take a
Java application and put it on Linux or Unix servers and scale very high
with a minimum of effort. Some companies do not want to use Windows servers
at all. The client I work for now, ( a large university), forbids the use
of Windows as a platform for a production server. For companies with a
variety of hardware Java is the only answer. I predict that it will be a
long time before Microsoft supports even one platform beyond Windows. They
will never support as many as Java.
6. The .net platform does do a better job of integrating multiple languages
than Java. However, I have rarely needed to integrate multiple languages in
a single project. When I do, it is fairly easy to do so through the network
layer. Java is improving in this area with its support for SOAP and the COM
bridge.
7. The argument that Microsoft is being more open than sun seems laughable
to me. Microsoft is the least "open" company of any that I have ever dealt
with. Their move to give C# to standards bodies looks to me like a very
familiar smoke screen. Sun could definately be more open than it has been,
but my experience with them has been much better than my experience with
Microsoft.
Microsoft's .net initiative is a big step forward, for them. If you are a
Microsoft devotee you have reason to rejoice. In my opinion the .net
platform, when it arrives, will still be years behind Java as a server
platform. Java is not a stationary target. The language will continue to
be improved and unless Sun drops the ball in a major way it will stay ahead
of .net in the technical arena.
Marketing is another matter. Microsoft is the king of fear, uncertainty,
and doubt. Microsoft's recent announcement about removing the support for
Java in Windows XP is a classic example of their tactics. Anybody who knows
the technical details will realize that the move does little or nothing to
harm Java technically. The JVM that Microsoft is removing is only used for
applets within Internet Explorer. Desktop and server applications are
totally unaffected and applets can be supported by downloading a plug-in.
The real purpose of Microsoft's announcement is to convince millions of
people, who don't know the technical details, that Java is dying.
Unfortunately tactics like this can be very effective. How well Sun can
respond to this kind of garbage remains to be seen.
We can argue about the technical differences between Microsoft's products
and Java forever. In my opinion the deciding issue is the vendor's
attitude. I prefer to work with a vendor that is open and helpful rather
than a vendor who can't wait to extract more money from me at every turn by
forcing me down a path that I don't want to travel.
-----Original Message-----
From: Bert [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Monday, July 23, 2001 8:09 PM
To: JRun-Talk
Subject: Re: Newbie question/Debate
I know a lot of companies are using Java , Ejb , Oracle
and Jsp but what are real the main benefits besides being cross platform
than using Asp and Com,Com+ or Asp.net and C# . I know these are Microsoft
only platform but what is the real advantage as to using Java in the real
world?
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