"Coffee is to stool as JAVA is to tool."
I have been using java for 4 years now. I am really getting sick and tired of its poor enviroment stablization.
I think it is very close to one of the most powerfull tools available mainstream today. However, I think its deployment and evolution have been rushed without learning that a language doesn't start by looking out the office window!
C# is looking very promising and you know what, I like MS, they take even a second more to evolve the usability condusive to its targets.
For me, for webapps, I would prefer to write COM's and use PHP as a middle ware and XML for the definitions of interaction. Rapid application development is the key nowadays.
What's your opinion?
[711 byte] By [
lgdouglas] at [2007-9-27 21:39:00]
I think you're wrong.
Java has evolved a great deal as a language, and it will keep evolving. True, it has advanced, and changed, and been molded over the years in many ways; but this isn't neccesarily a bad thing. They have maintained backwards compatibility, and separated the definitions of their platforms many times from one another. Java 1.0 isn't Java 2, they are different platforms. When I first started using Java back in 1997, I found it to be a very consistent, very promising language. However, the platform when it was created did not support many of the things it should, and needed to. When they revamped everything to adhere to patterns; I found it only got better. I find Java EXTREMELY consistent, extremely useful, and I find it's getting better every day.
I recently completed a project dealing with a company database for purchases using C# and Visual Studio .NET. C# is a wonderful language, definitely a step forward from C++, why is this?... It's Java. Not only is it Java, but it's old old Java. Swing by far is a more advanced than anything C# has, JDBC is far more advanced (In fact there are many bugs in the Ole database access Object on the .NET platform). Java is MUCH more powerful than C#, .NET, and older.
You feel that C# is very promising, but you have to realize, it's an infant. Java by far is faster, more stable, much more powerful, much more standard, and likely will not go through as quick of a change as C# will require to catch up with it. C# isn't finished yet, and Microsoft's goals are to catch up with Java; it will change to meet Java as it is now AND as Java changes. Not to mention that by using COM controls you're imediately losing all platform independence, and tying yourself into Windows.
If you're really looking for rapid web development, you should look at Jakarta Struts, and JSP.
C# is inferior, and lagging behind Java. But yes, it does look promising. I'd like to see 'fair' compitition between the two in the future; but as of now from my stance there is NO compitition.
Java is built on design patterns, it's elegant and simple, it's cross-platform, and face it; it's older than C# and definitely gained a great deal more platform stability.
If you want the MOST stable language definition by far, go back to C; I'm sure you'll find yourself at home. If what you're seeking is the BEST language overall, stick with Java a while longer; remember it was created in 1997, and it's an adolescant in terms of programming languages, it will soon reach it's adulthood. Don't abandon ship when you've already gone so far.
-Jason Thomas.
