Bryan: on the whole, you are correct. Java has major advantages for building enterprise software, primarily because of the strong frameworks & libraries surrounding it. APIs added in response to marketing hype about Java being 'the language of the internet' -an ad circa '97. I am not decrying this approach; I am not a techie with my head in the sand - in the end we benefit from all these groups consolidating interfaces. I am trying to continue the point I was making in my previous post: that the political differences between the open source community and the way that Java has been pushed may impede Java's acceptability in this market. And by market I don't just mean the several hundred respectable software engineers you'd like implementing highly visible ACS's, but also the thousands of kids unversed in UML and ACID tests. For ACS to be the first response to an earnest question of community systems, we want a base of the size and composition of, say, slashcode.
And that's really something I should say before I slide into rant mode (and then sleep) - this group is becoming steadily focused on "design, implement, and maintain enterprise class software in an cost-effective manner" and downplaying quick hacks; which is sad, b/c over the lifespan of the Web, that's where innovative services have sprouted like weeds (b/c when you're developing something totally new, UML patterns don't leap to hand). Language zealotry I'm indifferent to, but I don't want to be part of a group where process has killed creativity.
<RANT>
Your panel of suspects, "Apache group, Enhydra, IBM's alphaworks, .." only reaffirms my suspicions. I scan freshmeat.net daily, and I don't see many apps being writting in Java - I see supporting architectures&servers, eg, Enhydra. Nor are we seeing it used much outside the servlet space.(which is a fine place to be, if you happen to be a servlet.) I think the most popular OSS web app that leaps to mind would be half-empty.org's engine.
Java is not a perfect programming language, becuase no programming language is perfect. -- B. Quinn
While you have the truth of it in that no language is perfect, (I also never used the term 'perfect' in my post....), I feel you missed my point. Java sucks. Okay, a visit to alt.sysadmin.recovery will inform you that all languages suck, so I should elaborate: in terms of language design, Java was a step backwards for almost everyone who switched to it, with the major exception of the poor bastards grinding MFC over VisualC++. Maybe I'm just too young; maybe this happened with C++ & PL/1 & everything else; but Java was the first time I've seen a product so evidently unready for the light of day being rabidly supported by three quarters of an industry.
</RANT>
Talli: If you make the guacamole, they will come.
