Monday, January 28, 2002

I've been torn between Java/J2EE and .NET since probably Sept of 2001. Maybe even earlier. Slowly but surely I'm  gravitating toward .NET. So as not to forget why the heck I went this route I will list my albeit very subjective reasons for going that way. The Java world is tremendously fragmented. I didn't know how to put my finger on it until an email exchange with Adam Bosworth at BEA. Adam is working on Cajun, which he hopes will rally the Java community. I have the greatest respect for him and must thank him for helping to clarify the fact that yes indeed there is no central rally point in Java. NET and J2EE suffer from a great deal of hype. So it doesn't really matter as much which side will win . Its a crappy situation in either case. I came to this conclusion after researching the work Dave Winer has done on the very tool I'm using to write this (Radio). There is more to the current crop of technology than NET and J2EE. NET has better tool integration than Java. Try finding a Java UML editor (other than Argo and Poseidon) that is fast and stable and doesn't cost an arm and a leg. Even if there is one out there its so well hidden in a forrest of open source projects, I didn't find it. That's just one example. JSP tag libraries are another example. ASP.NET to my eyes is better integrated with the framework than JSP. Again this could just be a personal prejudice but its all I've got to go on. For all the propaganda about the community process and whatnot, Dave Winer had a post of an email exchange with a Sun guy that clarified a few things in my mind. Sun on occassion acts like Microsoft without the well trained marketing dept. .NET boils down to C# - which is very very similar syntactically to Java. So even if I have to switch to Java in 5 years, because the commuity process won, I'm still ahead compared to right now, since I only speak VB6 at the moment. Java programmers will continue to be paid more than NET programmes. And Microsoft will continue to lavish exceeding attention, warranted or not, on any Tom, Dick and Harry who happen to write a MS Access macro. There will be a lot of bad C# code written by Tom, Dick and Harry. Having reviewed what it takes to program well in Java I know what I'm lacking. It gives me a good idea of where I need to improve My learning curve is not quite as steep in the MS dev environment , as compared to Forte, or JBuilder or whatever. Of course you'd need an appserver in Java as well. BEA, JBoss etc.  I am a one man consultancy. In the past I have been able to handle considerable projects by myself. That could never be the case in Java. I do value my independence and even though team work is great fun I enjoy being the boss. In the MS world I'm eminently qualified as Mgr or team lead. In the Java world I might be able to shine somebody's shoes. The Java world, from my perspective, contains an awful lot of hot air generated by various academics who like to pontificate. SAP's decision to pick Java over NET was based on MS's purchase of Peachtree Accounting. My market continues to be small and mid-sized companies. Those guys are interested in quick solutions. The current state of my knowledge means I would need to bid twice as much for Java projects than NET ones. On top of that any SmallCo thats interested in some MS alternative would likely enjoy Newsphere Open Source tools - Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP all wrapped in a good dev IDE. Why is it that some of the best Java examples I've seen come from an Israeli guy writing for a Linux magazine? 7:21:17 PM     Ximian changes open-source license. The Linux company makes a philosophical shift in a key new open-source software project that now will be governed by a less restrictive license. [CNET News.com] 1:54:55 PM     I know this maybe one aquaintance writing about another, nonetheless I think Steve Gilmore's summary about UserLand Radio - and how it fits or doesn't fit with MS, IBM and SUN efforts to add semi-proprietary bull to Web Services - is well worth the read. If only to get a mile high perspective of the tool used in posting this information. 12:54:30 PM

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