Well, it's simply not a matter of being "cool," it's a matter of being expedient vs principled. As a long time software developer, I use both Java and occasionally PHP, but prefer Java. But, if someone wants to quickly get a dynamic site up and running, and scalable performance isn't an issue, then PHP or Ruby or some other scripting language, including Perl, would be a reasonable choice. But as complexity grows, the scripting languages falter. One need only look at applications such as facebook today vs facebook last year to see some of the issues being played out.

The second point is learning the development environment, including the language. The scripting languages are pretty easy to learn, and lack the complexity of Java (generics being an exquisite example of that). To learn Java, it's not like just picking up a book and having all you need to begin developing. This is the polar opposite of scripting languages, where a short book or online tutorial will provide all you need to begin. After all, many people would rather die than learn something new. And Java takes some effort to master. Whereas with a scripting language, the basics are easy and then one simply needs to learn about other "packages" or plug-ins.

My suggestion to everyone is to use an IDE (eclipse, netbeans, etc.) that can easily handle both scripting languages and more complex languages, such as Java. Then the environment becomes a non-issue. Additionally, as testing tools come along they are often incorporated into these wonderful IDEs. And if you think an IDE is too complex for your programming needs, I would suggest that programming is too complex for your attitude. As a famous person once said, the question "How can I learn to program, even though I don't like mathematics," is akin to asking "How can I learn to play the piano, even though I don't like music."

I came to Java rather late in my career, only adding it to my web architecture a couple years back (2007). And so, I feel I can speak somewhat to the reasons as to why developers avoid Java and choose easier languages.

1) Entrance to the Java club seems almost insurmountable. There are SO many frameworks from which to choose. How do you choose a framework when you don't know Java? How do you learn Java if you don't choose a framework to begin the learning process?

2) Authors of Java books assume that every developer comes from a C/C++ background, making constant references to the latter when trying to explain Java. Sorry, but I came from a procedural language background (AS/400) and, therefore, Java books seemed very difficult to trudge through.

3) Authors of Java books on a particular framework often feel it's necessary to make contrasting comparisons to other Java frameworks, assuming the reader has experience with that other framework. Again, if you don't have the assumed background, you miss the point the author is trying to make. In particular, if you came to Java after EJB was widely discarded as a bad idea, but if the book constantly refers to how it was done under EJB, then again you're lost as to the point the author wishes to make.

4) It's not just a matter of learning the Java syntax, but becoming familiar with the ever-growing number of packages.

5) In my view, from a web developer's perspective, Java did not come into its own until the advent of frameworks like Spring, Apache CXF, JAXB, JAX-WS, and the addition of annotations and Java generics to the language. Prior to these additions, Java was simply to burdensome of a language to use.

6) Java has a big drawback for web developers, which is a lack of hosts that will support the Java language. This is especially true if need to tweak the JVM arguments or add a spring-agent jar to the tomcat\common\lib directory.

Granted, Java is much more scalable, allows for access to an abundance of freebies, such as iText for building PDF documents, or POI for creating Microsoft Office documents, etc, etc. The worldwide collaboration and contribution of valuable, time-saving source code can't be overestimated in its value to the developer. After all is said and done, I chose Java because of these two factors that Java offers: scalability and the number of freebies via open source packages developed by some very bright software engineers. However, I still just chose Java as the middleware solution, and opted for Flex on the client side. I don't feel Java can compete with Flex for the UI.

R. Grimes

I am a java developer who decided one day to give PHP a try. That same day I saw why no real enterprise system will ever be written in PHP. It is a just HTML with some way of adding dynamic content. You will never be able to do anything serious with that. java is a programming language. PHP is a scripting language. That is a serious difference that should never be disregarded

The frustrating thing about articles like this is that there was absolutely no exposition on the merits of any of the three radically different languages mentioned except to say Java is fast.

Well, so is Haskell. So is C++. So is ASM. Why do you use Java? Clearly the only reason is because that's where you are comfortable. The unfortunate side-effect of being comfortable is that you start to get lazy.

You might actually find you really enjoy learning again if you were to take the time and research a subject before you write about it.

As a managed cloud computing provider, I have the fortunate position of watching my customers bring their software products to life. I see many of the reasons you give for people not choosing Java, but one you didn't list was the personality of the architect/developer. I do believe that PHP and Ruby are easier to get started with than Java. Someone who thinks their project is "just a few thousand lines of code" and wants to use an extreme-programming "code and go" style of development where refactoring is a way of life, probably will be more likely to choose an "easy" language and start prototyping in it. Those customers of mine who have their architecture planned out in detail and realize the complexity of what they're trying to build seem more likely to choose Java because of the explicit support for complexity it provides. There are also performance considerations: the customers I have who use Java seem to have less niggling performance problems than those using PHP or Ruby. If performance isn't considered in advance, this could affect the choice of language.

does anyone else think this blogger is like a little stereotypical at all?

Let me sum up all these posts.

Java, like its creators at Sun, is anal retentive.

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