I don’t want to be a Dinosaur!
Filed Under (Flex, Java, RIA, Technology) by jonr on January-8-2008

Cay Horstmann posted a great blog today on the current state of Java:

http://weblogs.java.net/blog/cayhorstmann/archive/2008/01/dinosaurs_can_t_1.html

‘Why is it that Sun can’t give me a decent web framework? Is it a shortcoming of the Java language? Or crummy API design? Rails uses the metaobject protocol to good effect in Active Record, but as it turns out, that isn’t my problem. JPA works ok for me. The rest of Rails doesn’t attract me—I want components, not RHTML files.’

Also, Last night I listen to a Java Posse podcast on Java/Web UI/Applets:
http://www.javaposse.com/index.php?post_id=291572. It is funny to me how they describe the problem (paraphrasing), “Java is great for RIA development, except for the browser plug-in stinks.” Followed by repeated suggestions that Java just needs to address this ‘small’ problem. This is why Flex/Flash is so interesting to me – they solved a problem that Java hasn’t been able to address in a decade plus.

There are so many wonderful new options for building RIA’s. Why is anyone still trying to use Java? It is possible that JavaFX will catapult Java back into the race, but as things stand now I am confused why anyone is turning to Java for building web UI’s.

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Comments:
JesterXL on January 8th, 2008 at 6:33 pm #

…the same reason I don’t dive into Silverlight. I’ve invested a lot of time and energy in learning the ActionScript language, the component frameworks, and learning the Flash Player runtime.

Having to start from scratch is a huge undertaking and leap of faith. Granted, C# is a ton like AS, and Silverlight share’s some of the same concepts. Regardless, I won’t be the same caliber of person even in 2 weeks.

That step backwards in perceived self-worth combined with the required need to re-learn a myriad of new concepts & workflow causes many to instead take a good look at themselves. During reflection, they now have context and thus can intelligently question why their toolset does not have such and such feature.

People hate change.

…regardless, history has shown Java peeps coming in droves to Flex; they can still use Java, too! Those guys just haven’t tasted the good kool-aid yet.

MartinShort on January 8th, 2008 at 7:50 pm #

Silverlight looks pretty interesting actually, unlike JavaFX which is too little, too late… and way too much dependency on the heavy J2SE platform.

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