While I’ve been working in Java for the past 7 – 8 years, I definitely do not label myself as a Java -loyalist. I’m an Internet Application loyalist, and I want to do whatever it takes to get the apps done right and done fast. I agree with Andreessen’s statement that Java’s complexity has grown by leaps and bounds. The learning curve has become too steep, and many IT departments are finding it difficult to train an employee in all the technologies needed to go in and make a simple change to a module on their web site. When you have to know Spring, Hibernate, Struts, Tiles, SQL/RDBMS, and make edits within all these technologies in order to add one field per the client, it becomes utterly ridiculous.

It may be fun for us developers, and we love all the separation of the various layers of the application, but it’s no good for the client, and that’s who pays us. So we as Architects, Analysts, Designers, and Developers better come up with something that provides for much faster turnaround time.

Just a thought for Internet Web Development departments. Many times a department will make a decision to use another technology (for example, an open source Java library) which is free. Its quickly implemented, but the department and the company never stop to calculate the true costs. When adding any new technology, there will always be a learning curve, not only for the current employees but also for any new employees brought on in the future (whether out of growth or for replacement). As well, now that an additional skill set, or API knowledge is needed, it might increase what the company has to pay to hire an employee.

The added technology may solve a real problem, and may not cost the department anything up front. But the question is, how much company time and money will it cost down the road? Will it be harder to replace any employees who have this new knowledge? Will other employees in the department need training? How quickly will they be able to pick it up? Will it unnecessarily complicate your application?

All important questions to ask.

In a previous post, I suggested I’d like to see a much looser coupling between the front-end, or GUI portion, of a web app, and the back-end, which handles data persistence, business rules, and all other types of data processing. Really, what I’m suggesting, is that these areas be broken down into separate unique services. The further we break components down, the easier it is to design them, code them, test them, and maintain them (at least to a point, you can go too far with this).

If you aren’t yet familiar with Service-Oriented Architecture, then read this post from several years ago on webservices.xml. It’s a good introduction to the concepts. So far in my experience, I think the GUI is being asked to do far too much; to be far too smart for its own good. I’d rather all the brains of the user interface be provided by services, and the front end simply stick to the role of providing a visual interface to those back-end services.

I still believe that Java is ideal for the back end portion of a web site or Internet application. When I say “back end”, I am referring to the data manipulation including the use of business rules and data persistence.

Its the use of Java on the front end, the web gui, that I’m not so sure I’m convinced of at this point. When JSP first came out, it seemed so simple, but then we began to get so concerned over separating roles and markup, content, and logic. Now creating a web site is just too much work. Lately, I’ve been using Word Press to do my blogs, and using Open Reports to create a reporting web site. Both of these are great examples of the simplicity in creating web sites. Open Reports creates forms to fill out with a simple web gui interface. Both of them require no “coding” in order to add further pages, change the look and feel, etc. They aren’t as custom as would be needed for most of the web applications I’ve worked on, but, I think we should be able to get to a point where the web front end is as simple as using Word Press, Open Reports, or any of the other CMS type web tools.

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You’ll probably notice an emerging theme over the next few weeks of comparing PHP to Java. Please understand, that I know very little PHP. I am a Java Architect and Developer. But that said, there are a lot of problems in the Java industry right now, and I’m finding it very interesting to compare it to PHP. Perhaps, at the very least the Java community can learn some valuable lessons from PHP.

The Server Side has an article about comparing CMS/Portals in Java and PHP. They found what I have found in comparing many other apps, and that is that PHP generally offers more choices and more functionality. You can read more here.

One of the replies to the article was by Dave C, and I just have to put the text of his comment here. Its has some truth in it. Java can of course, be as simple as he is describing PHP, but as he says, “Java programmers tend to overengineer everything”. I have a gut feeling that he is right, and that in the past, I may well have done that myself.

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