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Trouble Ahead for Java
Jeremy Geelan writes "The editor-in-chief of the world's largest journal devoted to Java wonders whether, with the arrival of Microsoft's C# programming language on the scene, Java perhaps has only 5 years or so left to live. Javaland has erupted! This is a little like Bill Gates wondering out loud whether to send Scott McNealy a Christmas card. But is Alan Williamson right? Read this short article and decide for yourself."
wrong. Java is popular because managers like it. it promotes a clear delegation of work - one architect and X code monkeys. pure object orientation has to be a concept thought up by MBAs just for this purpose...
Bah, whatever Williamson says, you have to take it with a big grain of salt, and maybe add some soy sauce too.
I used to subscribe JDJ, and I basically discontinued my subscription, in part, because of his sometimes quite stupid column. If you are a regular JDJ reader, you've probably figured out that he is quite pro-MS already.
Couldn't read the article before it is struck down, and I'd suggest that Williamson go write article in his own magazine, probably something like "C# Developer's Journal", or something like that. I mean, why would you stick with a technology if you know that it has only 5 years left to live? I sure wouldn't.
Don't forget that Visual Studio costs over $1000. There are a large number of decent Java tools that are free (as in beer.) For the notoriously cheap developer community, that is significant.
Well I just played with Eclipse and I must say, as an IDE goes, it is not very impressive. Seems to be build more for the Windows Developer than anyone else. And while that may be the "norm" of the script kiddies out there, I would rather see an editor more designed for the serious developer.
Must also say that SWT looks HORRIBLE. I would rather put up with a slight lag in the gui than put up with something that is going to ruin my vision!
Swing is only slow when the developer can't code. If you are using an IDE to build your gui for you it is going to be slow. Learn the language, write you gui by hand and learn how to make it perform. I write Swing GUIs on a daily basis that are quite fast. Would I say they perform as fast as native? Depends on the platform. Linux? yes, OSX? yes, Windows? hell no. Is that the language's fault? probably not.
What I am saying here is dont fault the API when you are running windows. My bet is on the problem being in the OS.
If you want to see a real gui, written in Swing, that runs quite nicely on every platform try out Netbeans I think you will be quite surprised and pleased. I know I was.
Of course if you want to do some serious coding then you need to learn VIM, there is a true editor. Definitely not for the script kiddies.
seSales, Point of Sale software for OS X.
I just downloaded their Java SDK 1.4 and tried to use it to build the JDBC interface for Postgres.
The compile failed.
If Sun were alive, it would have taken a tiny fraction of a percent of its budget for its primary software product and paid some test monkeys to compile all the major open source products that use it.
Now, the fact that they released a version of Java that doesn't work with one of the most important open source products that uses it isn't necessarily doom for Java -- someone else might pick it up and run with it -- but they'd better do it soon before Sun's necrosis sets in on that most vital organ of Sun's.
Seastead this.