[WEB4LIB] Re: Java and e-resource vendors

[Eric Hellman]

>Thomas Dowling said on Sun, 23 Sep 2001:
>
>>A wise man once said, "I have seen the future of the Web...and it's
>>[sic--sorry, Roy] name is Java."
>
>Ha! Some wise man...I'm happy to own up to my failed prediction, 
>particularly since I'm fond of saying only fools and geniuses 
>predict the future (one of which has been conclusively ruled out in 
>my case, so you don't even have to guess any more).
>
>Java definitely did not deliver on its promise, for which there are 
>many reasons. That it hasn't is extremely unfortunate, since the 
>promise was an inviting one indeed. Although Java is still being 
>used effectively on the server side, I'm not sure why. On the server 
>side you can use anything you want, which means C++ programmers 
>don't have to learn new tricks. Perhaps someone who knows about it 
>can explain to us why you would want to use Java rather than some 
>other language on the server side. Lord knows it isn't because 
>they're trying to keep me from looking like a fool!
>Roy

Java is becoming the dominant platform on the server-side. Almost all 
the industrial strength application servers (BEA, ATG Dynamo, IBM 
Websphere) are Java apps.

Apart from being well designed, Java has many advantages in ease of 
networking, security and safety. C++ is not a realistic alternative 
because one undisciplined programmer can crash or compromise the 
whole app. Cross-platform works quite well on the server side, 
because underneath the user interface the differences aren't a big 
deal.

VB and perl are widely used for server-side cgi development. Their 
attractiveness relative to java is inversely proportional to the 
project size.

Eric
-- 

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