I must say, I'm amazed at the overwhelming shortsightedness of this comment. Or maybe it's typical some people not to understand that not every return is immediate. So....
1) Google employees loads of systems and software engineers. Giving money to a university based center like OSU, PSU, and the Open Source Lab seems pretty smart. Does it generate an immediate ROA? no...But lot's of companies looking to get into Open Source are complaining about access to talent. Contributing to cirriculum and research seems like a good non-direct return.
2) Google uses loads of Open Source to help directly nail their margins. Having a healthy Open Source community helps that.
We need to know more about what you are doing to really be able to understand.
For example: Are you serializing XML to/from objects in Java or C#? Are you writing custom serializers? Or are you using the built in introspective type serializers for Objects?
Are you using Document centric SOAP, in which case your doing more parsing and logical operation that serialization/deserialization?
Do you really know that SOAP is your bottleneck? Have you profiled it?
I'm using SOAP in production with J2EE right now with no problems. We use both Document centric (DOM Element[]) and serialization/deserialization. It's fast, without problems. We are using load-balancing/clustering as well, and SOAP does not seem to be the scale-bottleneck for us. The write's/tx's to the database are a bigger problem. Smart usage of caching solves the problem for us.
Why is the VM more robust? Why is it more expressive? If you're going to refer to variable/properties access that's bs. What happens when you want to synchronize access to the variable hmmm?
A lot of this is basically a load of crap. Plenty of people use XML for configuration issues. I personally still use text for most of my config files, just because it requires simpler and easier code.
And all of the default configuration files in J2EE ARE xml. web.xml,ejb-jar.xml, whatever.
Also, what's so great about having your "system wide " xml parser? In my world, you specifically don't create environment variables for your XML jar's because that makes it a common resource and creates conflicts. What if you want to use a different parser and both parsers have a class called XMLParser? How does MS deal with knowledge of which is which. J2EE servers (for the most part) simply provide application level resources (WEB-INF/lib and WEB-INF/classes) and server-level resources (app-server/lib).
Next: Metadata: XDoclet provides this ability and a lot of people use it. More importantly, it's not tied. You can use your own system.
Next: I honestly don't know enough about assemblies, but it does look like there are some cool things in there. I have to admit, CLASSPATH for Java can be clunky. However, JAR/EAR/WAR is pretty good stuff, and does most of what people need.
Next: The remoting issue is a non-starter. The protocol is really up to the vendor, and some vendors provide proprietary, somy RMI/JRMP, some strict RMI-IIOP. SOAP also changes some of this (no advatages to either side).
You're forgetting all of the standard business issues that do in fact contribute to cost, and it depends on cost basing. If they use a Cost Based Accounting, they attribute certain costs to every product or even product parts. But they also have dreyage and shipping, interest expenses, oeprations expense and ABOVE ALL a fixed expense floor that they can't control. Plus, depending on their contractual obligations, they may have short term variable costs they can't control.
You are only really able to control variable cost in the manner you speak of. Fixed costs are, well, fixed. And because of their fixed costs, they may well be losing money on every box shipped.
I think you need to brush up on your BASIC ECONOMICS.
Most developers of enterprise systems don't need this. Traditionally, the bottleneck of data driven medium-to-big apps is the database; Connecting, connection pooling, reading, caching, whatever.
I'm working on a large web-services product/project now using various J2EE technologies (JRun, Castor, Object Relational Mapping, Axis) and my biggest bottlenecks are the database (problem mostly solved through caching, and clustered caching), XML Serialization/Deserialization or marshalling/unmarshalling (problem solved using Castor XML) of the object graph to and from the SOAP body and Java objects, and simply the passing of large object graphs through XML protocols like soap.
Go read the server-side.com, or Bitter Java, they'll tell you what the common bottlenecks are, and this usually isn't one of them.
I assume.NET has similar bottlenecks, but I don't know, haven't worked with it.
This really depends on some factors. First, for small projects, MVC architecture can be quite a bit of overkill.
However, for large projects that require extensibility, performance and tier separation, it can't be beat. I just finished a massive project for the US government using Struts, and if we hadn't used it changes, new features, and maintenance would be much more difficult. Struts and MVC was a good choice for this project
On top of that, with zero Java scripting code in the front end, it's much easier for people to make changes to the look and feel. On top of that that, I can rewrite the entire logical tier without having to rewrite the front end since we used the typical Value Object pattern that you see so often in MVC's.
The only downside to struts for me is that it relies on URL Mapping too much, and that can be a little cumbersome. I do like Tapestry's object model, but it's not as robust, I think, as Struts. Tapestry is a great project though.
On the other hand, the good thing about URL mapping is that it allows you to move your JSP's out of the regular directories above WEB-INF to secured directories below WEB-INF. For workflow and secure environments, this can be a really great plus. It ensures that people can only reach workflow and resources through the proper means.
I've been part of 3 startups, as a partner and a programmer. You people seem to have so little concept of what it is to grow and manage a company until it is stable and successful. Decent managers don't sleep at night because they're worried about payroll, about how to get you benefits.
Sunday nights were the worst for me in the early days. Never slept a wink trying to think everything through. Trying to to get enough money to operate until security. This shit ain't easy, and you know what? I paid ALL of my developers more than I paid myself. But in the end, I had equity (and so did they to a large extent). But if you want the control and the equity, get in on the ground floor, help it start.
Otherwise, you're hired to do a job, so do it. I can tell you, noone that works for me or the managers I work with feel that their time is less valuable than mine. In fact, that's the rule, everyone's time is equally valuable. But, as a manager and a founder, I get to make decisions that sometimes the developers don't agree with. That's the nature of all good teams, not just business, or development.
We are the most overpaid, pampered demographic segment, cut your word-hole whining.
You sir, are a fucktard. Did you actually look at the different code bases? The J2EE edition uses a multitier approach for data access, while the.NET combines a couple of these. So first that breaks the test goals anyway, but second it does a huge job cutting down lines. Second, the Exception handling is no good, total bloat. Maybe if you should stop spewing.
Third, the EJB's each have to implement the EJB methods, even though they are empty methods. So if the J2EE system moved these into a common superclass the code would be cut down..NET doesn't even have an Entity Bean equivalent. So this would have cut down the code base as well.
Oh, and how about the fact that they used an OLDER version of Weblogic, and OLDER version of the JDK (1.3x vs 1.4x with NIO and about 2000 performance enhancements), Distributed (XA) Transactions and OLDER version EJB 1.1 instead of EJB 2.0.
So please explain to me why this was a good test when MS used their latest stuff while the J2EE stuff was much older. Also, how come MS got to tune their.NET application, while BEA wasn't even invovled in the test of the app run on their server.
Yes, there are two businesses that have survived largely on legislation. Baseball (antitrust protection status) and the US Maritime Industry.
The maritime industry has protection from Antitrust legislation (granted by congress) which allows companies the commit normally illegal antitrust acts (like pricing collusion). This allows companies like Maersk, Hapag, Crowley, and all the others to form an OPEC style oligopoly for production and price fixing. I know this because I used to be an econo-weenie for one of these large maritime companies.
In infantry units like Recon and SF, they say,"There is no such thing as bad teams, only bad LEADERS!" And these people build teams like most developers can't believe. These guys can finish a sentence that another one started. They aren't just saying that to be gung-ho tough guys. It's true.
I've found that to be true in software as much as anywhere else.
One thing that no one has pointed out is the legal-community's perception of the 9th Circuit. Of the 12 Primary Federal Circuits (not including Federal Circuit Court of Appeals), the 9th is often considered the "renegade" court.
I live in the 9th's jurisdiction, and they drive attorney's and legislators nuts, because noone ever seems to know which way this court is goind to jump.
I didn't make the claim that a methodology would take the place of good people (if I implied that, then sorry). However, large projects I've seen where people just start developing have a much higher failure rate than projects that have a good design process up front (however, I'll grant these cases did NOT use XP).
You might have a system up and running, and it might be the best/coolest tech ever, but if it doesn't meet client needs or expectations, it's still a piece of shit.
Why is XP different? This isn't a flame question. I really want to know. I want to hear some success stories. I've had a great deal of success with RUP, but if XP is better, I want to know. I'm not stubborn. I'll switch my projects to the best methodolgy in a hearbeat. But I gotta be convinced.
Also, and XP may circumvent this, but with a good design process, every hour you spend in design, you prevent 5 hours of recoding when you get slapped around because of refactoring or something you missed, whatever. How does XP deal with this?
Just cuz I spent three months in design, doesn't mean I didn't deliver the right project, with the goods on-time and on-budget. RUP puts just as much emphasis on iterative dev and client interaction as XP. Whether or not it gets me somehwere faster in the short run doesn't matter to me. If it gets me to make a better product, and make a client happy does matter.
You seem like you might know something. I have a couple of questions about this.
First, I recently went to an interview where the development manager told me that architecture goes out the window when using XP. Extremeprogramming.org doesn't say this (nor anyplace else I've seen). In fact, extremeprogramming.org just says that the architectural knowledge becomes the domain of all of the developers, not just a primary architect. I really hope that the latter is true. What has your experience been? I'd like everyone who has done XP to wiegh in on this. If the former is true, I think I'll pass on XP.
I've been a J2EE architect for a while, and architecture counts.
Second, a lot of this sounds kind of like a ripoff of the Rational Unified Process (RUP) of development. Obviously the paired programming thing is different, but what about the rest (i.e. iterative development seems to be key in both ways).
So, why would I choose XP over RUP? RUP certainly has better industry acceptance, wider use, and better known success. These things don't mean that XP can't spank RUP, but I think I need convincing (maybe I'm feeling gunshy after an interview with a guy who didn't know what he was doing).
This isn't true. I am working on a massive development effort for the US federal government based entirely on open-source technologies. It's going very well. I'm not allowed to talk much about it though.
However, we were actually told from the beginning to use open-source by the government. Adoption does not seem to be a problem.
I don't think the Federal Government is still suing. The Department of Justice is settling (or attempting to). The nine hold out states are simply looking for different restrictions (which is remedies, not trial). The criminality has been upheld (antitrust is a criminal, not civil/tort litigation).
You're comments about ease of use are specious and not very accurate. They didn't say Apache is harder to configure.
They said, "[apache has an] unfriendly administration interface: All configuration and administration is done by editing.conf files" Unfriendly doesn't mean harder.
They didn't say harder. If you say that it's easier with a GUI, you may or may not be correct. But, like I said, it's not what they said.
What's more, is the fact that the average IIS administrator in my experience (and I used to develop web-systems using MS technologies) knows just enough to get it running. Not enough to make it run well. It takes *more* configuration (through said wonderfully easy gui) to get IIS tuned up and secure than it does through editing config files.
I'm a developer, not a sysadmin, and I hate doing sysadmin work. But I'd still rather use config files than GUI's any day of the week. The only one that I've seen that I really liked is JRun (that amazes me too). Even the with the biggies like WebSphere, WebLogic, HPAS you still see SysAdmins tweaking in the config files as often as using the management interfaces.
Slashdot Mirror
I must say, I'm amazed at the overwhelming shortsightedness of this comment. Or maybe it's typical some people not to understand that not every return is immediate. So....
1) Google employees loads of systems and software engineers. Giving money to a university based center like OSU, PSU, and the Open Source Lab seems pretty smart. Does it generate an immediate ROA? no...But lot's of companies looking to get into Open Source are complaining about access to talent. Contributing to cirriculum and research seems like a good non-direct return.
2) Google uses loads of Open Source to help directly nail their margins. Having a healthy Open Source community helps that.
How about Joram which is supposed to be pretty good.
What a recipe for disaster.
You work at one of those .COM's don't you. I suspect well see that bike on e-Bay soon enough.
heh.
We need to know more about what you are doing to really be able to understand.
For example: Are you serializing XML to/from objects in Java or C#? Are you writing custom serializers? Or are you using the built in introspective type serializers for Objects?
Are you using Document centric SOAP, in which case your doing more parsing and logical operation that serialization/deserialization?
Do you really know that SOAP is your bottleneck? Have you profiled it?
I'm using SOAP in production with J2EE right now with no problems. We use both Document centric (DOM Element[]) and serialization/deserialization.
It's fast, without problems. We are using load-balancing/clustering as well, and SOAP does not seem to be the scale-bottleneck for us. The write's/tx's to the database are a bigger problem. Smart usage of caching solves the problem for us.
I think you need to back youself up a bit more...
Why is the VM more robust?
Why is it more expressive? If you're going to refer to variable/properties access that's bs. What happens when you want to synchronize access to the variable hmmm?
A lot of this is basically a load of crap. Plenty of people use XML for configuration issues. I personally still use text for most of my config files, just because it requires simpler and easier code.
And all of the default configuration files in J2EE ARE xml. web.xml,ejb-jar.xml, whatever.
Also, what's so great about having your "system wide " xml parser? In my world, you specifically don't create environment variables for your XML jar's because that makes it a common resource and creates conflicts. What if you want to use a different parser and both parsers have a class called XMLParser? How does MS deal with knowledge of which is which. J2EE servers (for the most part) simply provide application level resources (WEB-INF/lib and WEB-INF/classes) and server-level resources (app-server/lib).
Next: Metadata: XDoclet provides this ability and a lot of people use it. More importantly, it's not tied. You can use your own system.
Next: I honestly don't know enough about assemblies, but it does look like there are some cool things in there. I have to admit, CLASSPATH for Java can be clunky. However, JAR/EAR/WAR is pretty good stuff, and does most of what people need.
Next: The remoting issue is a non-starter. The protocol is really up to the vendor, and some vendors provide proprietary, somy RMI/JRMP, some strict RMI-IIOP. SOAP also changes some of this (no advatages to either side).
So blah, for the most part.
You insensitive clod. Stop treating me like an object!
You're forgetting all of the standard business issues that do in fact contribute to cost, and it depends on cost basing. If they use a Cost Based Accounting, they attribute certain costs to every product or even product parts. But they also have dreyage and shipping, interest expenses, oeprations expense and ABOVE ALL a fixed expense floor that they can't control. Plus, depending on their contractual obligations, they may have short term variable costs they can't control. You are only really able to control variable cost in the manner you speak of. Fixed costs are, well, fixed. And because of their fixed costs, they may well be losing money on every box shipped. I think you need to brush up on your BASIC ECONOMICS.
Most developers of enterprise systems don't need this. Traditionally, the bottleneck of data driven medium-to-big apps is the database; Connecting, connection pooling, reading, caching, whatever.
.NET has similar bottlenecks, but I don't know, haven't worked with it.
I'm working on a large web-services product/project now using various J2EE technologies (JRun, Castor, Object Relational Mapping, Axis) and my biggest bottlenecks are the database (problem mostly solved through caching, and clustered caching), XML Serialization/Deserialization or marshalling/unmarshalling (problem solved using Castor XML) of the object graph to and from the SOAP body and Java objects, and simply the passing of large object graphs through XML protocols like soap.
Go read the server-side.com, or Bitter Java, they'll tell you what the common bottlenecks are, and this usually isn't one of them.
I assume
This really depends on some factors. First, for small projects, MVC architecture can be quite a bit of overkill.
However, for large projects that require extensibility, performance and tier separation, it can't be beat. I just finished a massive project for the US government using Struts, and if we hadn't used it changes, new features, and maintenance would be much more difficult. Struts and MVC was a good choice for this project
On top of that, with zero Java scripting code in the front end, it's much easier for people to make changes to the look and feel. On top of that that, I can rewrite the entire logical tier without having to rewrite the front end since we used the typical Value Object pattern that you see so often in MVC's.
The only downside to struts for me is that it relies on URL Mapping too much, and that can be a little cumbersome. I do like Tapestry's object model, but it's not as robust, I think, as Struts. Tapestry is a great project though.
On the other hand, the good thing about URL mapping is that it allows you to move your JSP's out of the regular directories above WEB-INF to secured directories below WEB-INF. For workflow and secure environments, this can be a really great plus. It ensures that people can only reach workflow and resources through the proper means.
-Wickedhobo
I've been part of 3 startups, as a partner and a programmer. You people seem to have so little concept of what it is to grow and manage a company until it is stable and successful. Decent managers don't sleep at night because they're worried about payroll, about how to get you benefits.
Sunday nights were the worst for me in the early days. Never slept a wink trying to think everything through. Trying to to get enough money to operate until security. This shit ain't easy, and you know what? I paid ALL of my developers more than I paid myself. But in the end, I had equity (and so did they to a large extent). But if you want the control and the equity, get in on the ground floor, help it start.
Otherwise, you're hired to do a job, so do it. I can tell you, noone that works for me or the managers I work with feel that their time is less valuable than mine. In fact, that's the rule, everyone's time is equally valuable. But, as a manager and a founder, I get to make decisions that sometimes the developers don't agree with. That's the nature of all good teams, not just business, or development.
We are the most overpaid, pampered demographic segment, cut your word-hole whining.
You sir, are a fucktard. Did you actually look at the different code bases? The J2EE edition uses a multitier approach for data access, while the .NET combines a couple of these. So first that breaks the test goals anyway, but second it does a huge job cutting down lines. Second, the Exception handling is no good, total bloat. Maybe if you should stop spewing.
.NET doesn't even have an Entity Bean equivalent. So this would have cut down the code base as well.
.NET application, while BEA wasn't even invovled in the test of the app run on their server.
Third, the EJB's each have to implement the EJB methods, even though they are empty methods. So if the J2EE system moved these into a common superclass the code would be cut down.
Oh, and how about the fact that they used an OLDER version of Weblogic, and OLDER version of the JDK (1.3x vs 1.4x with NIO and about 2000 performance enhancements), Distributed (XA) Transactions and OLDER version EJB 1.1 instead of EJB 2.0.
So please explain to me why this was a good test when MS used their latest stuff while the J2EE stuff was much older. Also, how come MS got to tune their
Are you actually a server-side developer?
So why don't you tell me why they used
Simply, no matter what business your in, you start making poor decisions when your tired. Code quality is gonna drop.
Yes, there are two businesses that have survived largely on legislation. Baseball (antitrust protection status) and the US Maritime Industry.
The maritime industry has protection from Antitrust legislation (granted by congress) which allows companies the commit normally illegal antitrust acts (like pricing collusion). This allows companies like Maersk, Hapag, Crowley, and all the others to form an OPEC style oligopoly for production and price fixing. I know this because I used to be an econo-weenie for one of these large maritime companies.
In infantry units like Recon and SF, they say,"There is no such thing as bad teams, only bad LEADERS!" And these people build teams like most developers can't believe. These guys can finish a sentence that another one started. They aren't just saying that to be gung-ho tough guys. It's true.
I've found that to be true in software as much as anywhere else.
One thing that no one has pointed out is the legal-community's perception of the 9th Circuit. Of the 12 Primary Federal Circuits (not including Federal Circuit Court of Appeals), the 9th is often considered the "renegade" court.
I live in the 9th's jurisdiction, and they drive attorney's and legislators nuts, because noone ever seems to know which way this court is goind to jump.
good answer. How would you recomment that I go about beginning to use XP?
I didn't make the claim that a methodology would take the place of good people (if I implied that, then sorry). However, large projects I've seen where people just start developing have a much higher failure rate than projects that have a good design process up front (however, I'll grant these cases did NOT use XP).
You might have a system up and running, and it might be the best/coolest tech ever, but if it doesn't meet client needs or expectations, it's still a piece of shit.
Why is XP different? This isn't a flame question. I really want to know. I want to hear some success stories. I've had a great deal of success with RUP, but if XP is better, I want to know. I'm not stubborn. I'll switch my projects to the best methodolgy in a hearbeat. But I gotta be convinced.
Also, and XP may circumvent this, but with a good design process, every hour you spend in design, you prevent 5 hours of recoding when you get slapped around because of refactoring or something you missed, whatever. How does XP deal with this?
Just cuz I spent three months in design, doesn't mean I didn't deliver the right project, with the goods on-time and on-budget. RUP puts just as much emphasis on iterative dev and client interaction as XP. Whether or not it gets me somehwere faster in the short run doesn't matter to me. If it gets me to make a better product, and make a client happy does matter.
You seem like you might know something. I have a couple of questions about this.
First, I recently went to an interview where the development manager told me that architecture goes out the window when using XP. Extremeprogramming.org doesn't say this (nor anyplace else I've seen). In fact, extremeprogramming.org just says that the architectural knowledge becomes the domain of all of the developers, not just a primary architect. I really hope that the latter is true. What has your experience been? I'd like everyone who has done XP to wiegh in on this. If the former is true, I think I'll pass on XP.
I've been a J2EE architect for a while, and architecture counts.
Second, a lot of this sounds kind of like a ripoff of the Rational Unified Process (RUP) of development. Obviously the paired programming thing is different, but what about the rest (i.e. iterative development seems to be key in both ways).
So, why would I choose XP over RUP? RUP certainly has better industry acceptance, wider use, and better known success. These things don't mean that XP can't spank RUP, but I think I need convincing (maybe I'm feeling gunshy after an interview with a guy who didn't know what he was doing).
This isn't true. I am working on a massive development effort for the US federal government based entirely on open-source technologies.
It's going very well. I'm not allowed to talk much about it though.
However, we were actually told from the beginning to use open-source by the government. Adoption does not seem to be a problem.
I don't think the Federal Government is still suing. The Department of Justice is settling (or attempting to). The nine hold out states are simply looking for different restrictions (which is remedies, not trial). The criminality has been upheld (antitrust is a criminal, not civil/tort litigation).
You're comments about ease of use are specious and not very accurate. They didn't say Apache is harder to configure.
.conf files"
They said, "[apache has an] unfriendly administration interface: All configuration and administration is done by editing
Unfriendly doesn't mean harder.
They didn't say harder. If you say that it's easier with a GUI, you may or may not be correct. But, like I said, it's not what they said.
What's more, is the fact that the average IIS administrator in my experience (and I used to develop web-systems using MS technologies) knows just enough to get it running. Not enough to make it run well. It takes *more* configuration (through said wonderfully easy gui) to get IIS tuned up and secure than it does through editing config files.
I'm a developer, not a sysadmin, and I hate doing sysadmin work. But I'd still rather use config files than GUI's any day of the week. The only one that I've seen that I really liked is JRun (that amazes me too). Even the with the biggies like WebSphere, WebLogic, HPAS you still see SysAdmins tweaking in the config files as often as using the management interfaces.
You forgot the most important goal.
RULE THE WORLD.
Bill Gates says to Ballmer...
Pinky, you you moron...
Henry Kissinger said that countries don't have friends, they have interests. Corporate world is pretty much the same.