LAMP Grid Application Server, No More J2EE

An anonymous reader writes "Check out this blog entry in Loosely Coupled about ActiveGrid's new open source Grid Application Server based on the LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP/Python/Perl) stack. Not to start another PHP vs. Java flame war, but it looks like LAMP is starting to grow up, and that it is much better suited for next generation applications than J2EE."

Comments

In which world?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to start another PHP vs. Java flame war, but it looks like LAMP is starting to grow up, and that it is much better suited for next generation applications than J2EE.

What the hell do you base that peice of tripe on? Why lets compare an incomplete system cobled together on top of PHP to a mature Java based solution which is currently being used in hundreds of thousands of enterprise sites daily throughout the world. Yeah, I can see how LAMP just kicks J2EE's ass on that one.

Seriously, overhype much?

Re:In which world?

[Eric Giguere]

People often equate J2EE with web applications and so do the J2EE-vs-LAMP comparison without the right information. J2EE is more than just web applications. You can build non-web clients that use the J2EE component model (they can even be built in other languages and use CORBA mappings). J2EE provides connections to legacy systems. J2EE supports asynchronous messaging. You can do pretty much everything transactionally with J2EE as well, so that if something fails along the way you can rollback your changes.

Actually, comparing J2EE to LAMP is wrong in another way. A J2EE server can run on Linux. An Apache web server is often used as a front end to a J2EE server (especially when you integrate the app server within an already-existing web server infrastructure). You could use MySQL (though I think you'd better off using ASA, but I'm biased) as long as you make sure to use transactional tables. There goes the "LAM" part of "LAMP".

So really, you're comparing the Java-based J2EE framework against similar Perl/PHP/Python frameworks. At least, that's what you should be comparing. Maybe for pure web apps the latter are better. I don't know, but you have to compare oranges to oranges.

Eric
JavaScript is not Java

Re:In which world?

[mobiGeek]

Now, what can we conclude from this?

The only thing you can conclude is that your replaced a bunch of bozos. There is absolutely nothing else you can conclude.

Give me your PHP/MySQL solution and I bet I can bring it to its knees with a few properly placed bad queries and/or data structures.

To make any conclusions about technologies based on your one example would be a crime (...though, this is /. after all...)

Re:In which world?

[j3110]

I think people are seriously misunderstanding the purposes of each peice of software... So I'll give it my best shot to clear it up.

1) PHP
For web scripting.
Do something small and fast.
Will run fast.
Won't scale for the strictest rules of scaling.

2) J2EE
For everything big, not just web sites.
Do something large and right, which takes more front time, but much less time to keep up. A good way to program yourself out of a job, easily. (Can be done with PHP, but not really stressed so much.)
Will run fast, but can consume a lot of resources in the process. If it's running slow, just give it more memory, and learn -Xmx settings.
Will scale in all senses of the word.

Now... a little on the scalability...
1) Load balancers are only 1 section of a huge problem, and you can load balance anything, including LAMP.
2) Transaction support is new to the M in lamp, and no one uses them in the P part. J2EE has a transaction system (JTA) that will combine all your data access into one big happy transaction, on all your resources that support JTA (includes JDBC).
3) Session state replication is completely absent from LAMP. A server could catch fire in a good J2EE configuration, and when the user clicks submit, they wouldn't even know, because at least two servers will have the users session id.

Ok... now about why it takes less upkeep in J2EE land...
1) Specs require backwards compatibility in all new versions. I've had problems with every section of LAMP on this issue, but never on J2EE.
2) A JSP page is only supposed to display information and forms. There is no logic in it. If you have problems with this, I recommend STRUTS. Some people recommend WebWork or Spring. It's a matter of taste, but STRUTS is still the top dog. In PHP, you have to work hard to not mix the two. I used to do action= in the get to simulate this behavior, but it's still not as good, just workable.
3) If you want a rich application accessing your data, you can do it through the same CORBA, SOAP, or XMLRPC calls. The newest spec from J2EE allows you to turn a normal function on a Session Bean (EJB) into a web service that can be called from anything, including JavaScript on Mozilla or a Flash animation (I have done this). Since it's calling the exact same method, if the database changes, you only have to update the code in the least number of places possible.

Features completely abscent from LAMP:
Good web-service support (you can fake it, but Zope actually does XML RPC for you)
JTA (Transaction system)
JMS (Messaging System for asynchronous processing)

Things commonly thought to be missing from Java, but aren't:
Easy scripting of SQL (The Java Standard Taglib is far easier to use than anything I used in PHP or Perl, but Zope probably has everyone beat there)
Speed (the bottleneck in 99% of all software is disk related... If you know how to make a database properly, it will be fast.)

Genuine concerns with Java:
Memory consumption.
Threading on your particular platform.
Lagged support for the newest features on all platforms.
Doesn't automatically pool database connections.
Can be hard to configure properly.
Requires more knowledge than it lets on.

Let me get this straight

[Anonymous Coward]

So you are basically saying: Throw more hardware at an inherently slow platform (LAMP) than to use highly optimized J2EE-servers with s state-of-the-art hotspot compiler?

New /. business model?

[dr_d_19]

Seriously, is the flame war the new source if income? I mean, it sure increases the number of banner views. Let's report on a new emacs-version, citing it as "far less potent than the newer VI. also notepad K1CK$ aSS".

Re:Where to go ?

[Enygma42]

Java is well suited for middle-ware too. You don't have to install a big heavy duty J2EE server and enterprise level DB server. Tomcat & MySQL does the job just fine for smaller operations.
Take a look at O'Reillys "Better, Faster, Lighter Java"
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/bfljava/

IMHO Java scales very well, from small prototype projects right up to enterprise level apps. PHP is fine for the smaller stuff but I'd rather poke my eyes out with a white hot needle than develop and enterprise app with it.

LAMP may be fine for web-based applications...

[altgrr]

...but doesn't it seem a little silly to base computational applications on what is essentially a glorified webserver? Sure, use LAMP for your shopping cart, but enterprise applications are more than just shopping carts.

"There is no impedance mismatch, everything talks SOAP/HTTP" - well, yes, that's great, but you shouldn't be talking SOAP/HTTP internally. There are faster means of communication, so use them.

"Apparently what is needed is a language/environment that is loosely typed in order to encapsulate XML well and that can efficiently process text" - only on input and output. In intermediary stages, you should be using a much more efficient format. If you're doing something clever, it's going to involve much more than just plain old text.

"J2EE and .NET applications were never designed with grids in mind" - well, I can't speak for .NET, but J2EE is designed for clustering and distribution. Have you seen EJBs? EJBs are designed for interaction across computers.

RTFA and you'll see that LAMP is being pushed for "text-pumping". Why aren't they saying it's any good for anything else? Because it most likely isn't.

Sigh...

[LarsWestergren]

Ok, I had already spent a modpoint in this topic, but I realized it is better to speak up to defend your position than to stand on the sides and give out points to "your" team.

Article is Slashdotted, so I can't comment on the content, but just to reply to some of the posts that will defenitely come up, because they ALWAYS come up when Java is discussed-

EJB are bloated etc:
J2EE is does NOT equal Enterprise Javabeans. J2EE contains classes for lots of things. XML processing, messages, web servers, database connectivity, etc. You don't have to use EJB. Lots of Java developers don't like EJB because they are too cumbersome, and there are plenty of alternatives. Check out for instance O'Reillys recent book Better, Faster, Lighter Java.

Java is slow:
Startup time for the JVM is still slow yes. This rarely matters for a web/application server. When it comes to running, it is plenty enough.

It isn't open source:
So what. It's close enough.

Ok, that over with, was this darn topic necessary? I like both LAMP and Java. They have their uses, why did the poster and the article have to turn this into a confrontation?

Re:Where to go ?

[LarsWestergren]

Slashdotters help me with this;

Allright then...

and there are no free (as in beer) quality servers

Apache Tomcat.

(..and kinky, every one and their mom developed a framework)

Doesn't mean you have to use them all.

I want a decent middle ware, that is cross platform, fast, and well documented, free as in beer (and preferably as in speech also).

That's Java.

Re:What the?

[IO ERROR]

Not to offend you, but check out mysql.com!

LAMP is great for what it does, but MySQL has no place in the enterprise. There's way too much important stuff that it lacks. I'm sure the nice folks who run /. can tell you of their many misadventures with MySQL, if they chose to...

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go find my asbestos suit.

LAMP

[slittle]

Substitute Postgres or whatever to taste, but that just fucks up a perfectly good acronym, so we'll pretend MySQL is a placeholder for $REAL_DATABASE of your choice.

Re:Use Lisp

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does nobody use it? Fear, uncertainty and doubt. [...] People can't get over the parentheses. The boss won't approve it. Nobody else uses it, so it's hard to get support.

You know, I think those were all pretty valid reasons. ;-)

Re:I just got myself some new asbestos underwear

[iBod]

Of course LAMP is better suited for next-generation applications than Java.

Why "of course"?

Am I alone in wondering exactly what a "next-generation application" is anyway?

What qualities or requirements define a "next-generation application", other than it not having been developed yet?

Anyhow, it was my take on the article that the use of 'P' languages was incidental, it was the grid concept and the horizontal scaling. The 'P' languages just happen to be part of a readily available set of tools for implementing this idea.

Laughing all the way!

[tod_miller]

I didn't even know there was a PHP and Java flamewar going on! Where do I enlist?

No seriously, it is like comparing apples and oranges. PHP and the wonderous LAMP stack (I have just heard about it, so that is the first stumbling block for its adoption! many companies like to be fast followers) might be able to do what Java does if you look at output, it might even be quick, but that has nothing to do with the costs and development and staffing that real people with real money care about.

Java has a huge demand in industry that is being met with huge interest in terms of capable candidates which is proven by the number of successful and *bearing in mind this isn't a flamewar!* well written open source project out there.

The level of Java competency in the industry is growing enormously as a result, which is a good thing. PHP is also good, and I like PHP, lets not get things mixed up here.

[snip = list of reasons why people choose java, which was boring even me]

Also J2EE is *the* platform for applications running for thousands of users, on machines with 90+ GB of ram, and 24 processors just to handle the data requirements.

Oracle love J2EE. Oracle is a fairly decent enterprise (not just performance, but support and board level confidence) db to say the least.

Now, LAMP might be lovely, but why even pitch it against anything, dear LAMP community, just be, don't try and compare it against anything.

FUD et al.

PS: erm, nerr nerr? u sux0r? pwned? I am loosing my touch at this internet name calling gaff, time to retire.

Whoa there cowboy.. you don't understand.

[sporty]

Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP/Python/Perl

J2EE is not about the OS, server or database. It's a specification. JBoss (JBass.. heh), Geronimo, Welogic and many others are implementations of it. Some are certified, some are not, like Resin.

You can run it on many os's, including linux. Apache is making one of the J2EE servers. I'm not sure where databases came into all of this, since it's fairly independent. I.e. w/ jboss, there are data mappings for all of these servers, if you decide to use EJB, which is part of the spec, but not a requirement to use. The last thing is the big ol' P.

J2EE is a set of technology specs. Things like XML manipulations (JAXB, JAXM), communication "stuff", like SOAP, JMS and JMX, database abstractions, like EJB using JDO, CMP, BMP.. "web stuff", though you can do your own protocols, with the servlet spec. Last I checked, the closes to a spec I've seen is p5ee, which had an interesting run. You had options of what to use, maybe too many, in p5ee, but that was about it. It would have been nice to see a tight binding between everything.

Anyway.. the LAM in LAMP is irrelivant in this article. I can use Linux, Apache and MySQL with J2EE if I so desired.

Erm, back to basics folks... EE and strings?

[tod_miller]

So let's look at the requirements for today's corporate applications ... Given these requirements, Java does not fare very well. Apparently what is needed is a language/environment that is loosely typed in order to encapsulate XML well and that can efficiently process text. It should be very well suited for specifying control flow. And it should be a thin veneer over the operating system.

So we came from string programming roots, we developed OOP and AOP, and now... now we go back to string programming because of xml parsing?

I find this a worrying trend, you have to understand, an application is state, and behaviour.

This is trying to tie an application into a 'thin veneer' over an operating system, which seems a bit worrying for an app that will cost a few million to develop in the right circles.

Be reducing all the benefits of OOP (huge and varied, numerous and wonderful) we seek to define our crowining enterprise applications with an approach from the 70's that would pioneer the use of string processing programming constructs over highly developed and structured powerful programming tools.

The program isn't the code, it isn't the data, it is the design, the behaviour, the organisation, the people understanding it. All of this becomes very alien to us when we go this route.

Humanising code is key to developing the kind of applications this company has now touted.

What is looselycoupled? Anyone read it regularly? is it a valid news source? Is this some free advertising for a fad?

I am almost tempted to read more about the LAMP, but I just have a knowing feeling it will be another 'cure all' product.

Yep, tick tick, oops, missed one, back to step 1.

Lisp vs. C

[namekuseijin]

ah, the eternal dynamic/productive/high-level/slow vs static/unproductive/low-level/fast debacle.

Nice to see the Lisp vs C flame still going strong these days... :)

Nice to see too both have many intelectual descendents which are very good on their own.

And finally, nice to see that both sides of the same coin have seen such widespread adoption to this day, proof that more than one way of thinking is a good thing.

Re:Parent rewritten with some HTML code

[altgrr]

J2EE is overengineered for everything, and darn too complex to learn.

It took me one week as part of a work placement in a summer holiday to learn all about EJBs. Either it can't be that hard, or I'm a genius. ;)

Oh, and I think it's a little contradictory to argue this line, then argue along the lines of just doing some no-brainer form-filling with the application server.

J2EE is about more than just shopping carts, and thus it WILL take longer to learn than a system that's suited to running an online shopping cart.

Java AS suck RAM big time (and CPU too). BEA advises customers to use open-source technology (Apache) to server static content, cuz' it would kill the server.

That's because application servers are not web servers. Sledgehammer and nut spring to mind.

PHP actually is running the internet far more than java has ever been

See above. Java is about running applications that just so happen to have a web front-end. PHP is about hosting websites that just so happen to have some application logic behind them.

J2EE only has it place in big enterprises that are willing to get it becuase the big bucks it costs come with some big name company that offers support.

"the big bucks it costs" - *COUGH*

even in enterprise contexts, the largest part of the majority of apps is pretty stupid form entry and validation

If that's the case, you don't need a big server cluster to manage it...