Fresh Pot of Java or The Java Platform, Ten Years Later

I haven't looked at Java in a long while, almost ten years. I remember walking away very unimpressed with the language and runtime back then. The promise of "write once, run everywhere" was laughable at most. The only thing I really liked was applets but ultimately dismissed them due to the need of distributing the JRE to clients. Not exactly sure when, but I also played around with JSP when it came out. Ultimately, I felt Java was slow, big, not portable, that the language was just too clean and lacked some very important features and that crafting libraries to compensate for those missing features was just too painful.

I also felt the supporters of the technology downplayed real issues (and still do?) when building applications in order to market the language. Correct use of threading and memory management to name a few are still no walk in the park no matter what the environment supports or not. I also worried about deployment issues related to applications and the runtime itself.

In any case, I started looking at Java again recently. Not sure why, maybe it's the idea of the virtual machine that I always liked, just plain boredom or maybe just a new outlook on life in general.

With the latest version of Java, i.e., 6, I can honestly say it's nice, real nice. I still don't know how portable it really is but I don't particularly care anymore. Let's face it, with most applications delivered over the Web now, the application/JVM would run on a server/OS that would be fully validated anyway.

Things I really like:

1. The huge class libraries
2. Support for generics. I can't tell you how I hated having containers full of "Object" classes and having to rely on runtime exceptions to determine correctness. This is the job of the compiler to tell me and it's about time it did so.
3. Tools. Eclipse and NetBeans to name a few. The NetBeans 6 Beta is really nice.
4. Application servers. Only tried Glassfish and Tomcat, neither really have everything I want but interestingly enough, if combined they would most likely be ideal.
5. Management of application servers. Haven't tried to do anything with them really yet scalability wise but I have written quite a few highly scalable servers in my day and configuration and management was always lacking. Why? Time simply, budgets had to be spent on other areas. The administrative application included with Glassfish is good and does its job really well.
6. Web deployments
7. Java DB, A.K.A. Apache Derby. If you're dealing with simple brochure website or something like that, it might be worthwhile to just use this DB and not bother with anything else if your developing in Java, it's included in the SDK after all.
8. Java.nio was something I solely missed previously. Let's face it, sometimes simple blocking I/O just won't do even with thread support. In my line of work, standard blocking I/O is too often the wrong answer.
9. Support for scripting. JRuby, JPython and Sun also has its own scripting language whose name escapes me right now.

Also, I found that speed and application interactivity is fine on modern hardware and that assertions are finally supported.

In all, I invested two full days on Java and its related technologies and came away impressed. Using Eclipse, I wrote a sample console application. Using NetBeans, I wrote a sample web application. The application was unimpressive but the web application I wrote was much more interesting.

This web application was a less (much less) ambitious version of the DinnerNow .Net sample application. Ajax support, Google maps, mobile backend, web marketplace driven by Apache Derby in network configuration of all things and a simple workflow using BPEL. I didn't bother with all features, i.e. command line client, management console and secure authentication didn't make the cut. However, I did enough to get a feel for Java and found it pleasant to work with which is a lot more than I can say about it ten years ago.

That being said, not everything is positive. I've been around this industry for a while. It's easy for me to pick up new toolkits and languages. I really feel the Java documentation is hard for newcomers to get into easily. The name of the different Java technologies and tools is one such barrier. A much more complete map of Java related technologies is needed and more importantly, it needs to offer guidance on how these technologies relate to one another.

Don't believe me? Have a look at the Apache Software Foundation site. Obviously, a priceless resource for any aspiring Java developer. Look at the software directory on the left side of the main page... You will see a list of very colorful names like Cayenne, Jakarta, Lucenne and Maven among others with no clear indication of what these really do for you or where to start. To learn about each project, you have to dwell into each of their individual websites and somehow track all the projects yourself, great. Needless to say, Apache is not Sun but the company does suffer from the same techno word salad in its own documentation of the Java platform.

It's still too early to tell if I will use using Java in a future project but I'm seriously considering it. I plan on delving into .Net shortly in the future since I haven't bothered looking since 1.1 beta something. This evaluation will obviously impact this one on Java.