I have been reading recently, about some people pondering whether Java is dead, with AJAX, Web 2.0 scripting technologies, PHP, and Ruby on Rails, all doing web development. Should Application developers, Enterprise Application Development teams, and Internet Development teams be scared? 10 years ago COBOL was the dominant language. Now it’s 20th. Certainly Java could meet the same fate right? Nothing could be further from the truth.
The main reason COBOL met its fate was because procedural languages were being supplanted by Object Oriented languages like C. Java had the right ingredients for being where it is now. It was easy to learn, it was based off of a mature existing language and because of the Y2K scare, and many organizations were modernizing their applications. So what about these new Web languages? The web IS everything today right? Well the web is where most of the development is going, but most of the applications written in the new scripting languages are trying to work around the limitations of the web. The Internet was never designed with commerce in mind; it was designed to easily share documents.
Java is capable of doing web applications, but it key asset is that it embraces the new languages. The latest JDK is actively working to integrate Java code with Ruby, PHP, Python, Groovy, and JavaScript. The integration means that changes will be evolutionary, not revolutionary. We can use our existing code, and get the benefits of new techniques and technologies. Java has a huge library of classes that already solves many problems, and has most of your business logic.
Does Java need help? Indeed. The art of application development is to use the right tool for the job. If I can use a new tool that I can integrate with my existing tools, I will use them. Java is very smart for not trying to create a competing technology and just use what works. Is Java Dead? Not for the foreseeable future. Will Java be replaced? I can see it being replaced by a “better” version. Scala is promising because it solves some problems that Java has, but still retains most of the syntax and feel of Java. It even runs in the JVM. Scala will not replace Java immediately, and if it does, Java developers can easily migrate to it.
The main reason COBOL met its fate was because procedural languages were being supplanted by Object Oriented languages like C. Java had the right ingredients for being where it is now. It was easy to learn, it was based off of a mature existing language and because of the Y2K scare, and many organizations were modernizing their applications. So what about these new Web languages? The web IS everything today right? Well the web is where most of the development is going, but most of the applications written in the new scripting languages are trying to work around the limitations of the web. The Internet was never designed with commerce in mind; it was designed to easily share documents.
Java is capable of doing web applications, but it key asset is that it embraces the new languages. The latest JDK is actively working to integrate Java code with Ruby, PHP, Python, Groovy, and JavaScript. The integration means that changes will be evolutionary, not revolutionary. We can use our existing code, and get the benefits of new techniques and technologies. Java has a huge library of classes that already solves many problems, and has most of your business logic.
Does Java need help? Indeed. The art of application development is to use the right tool for the job. If I can use a new tool that I can integrate with my existing tools, I will use them. Java is very smart for not trying to create a competing technology and just use what works. Is Java Dead? Not for the foreseeable future. Will Java be replaced? I can see it being replaced by a “better” version. Scala is promising because it solves some problems that Java has, but still retains most of the syntax and feel of Java. It even runs in the JVM. Scala will not replace Java immediately, and if it does, Java developers can easily migrate to it.
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