can someone explain this to me please

[Mike Henley]

"Java may not be the best tool for making desktop applications
(although it is a thousand times better at it than it used to be), but
as many before me have said, Java really shines on the server, which
is where most people deploy it now days."

I don't program in Java, obviously. I'm not an IT professional, and
though i have learnt some scripting languages such as python, ruby,
and perl, i have stayed away from Java and C++ as they're not use for
me.

Can someone explain to me please why Java "shines on the server"? I
have learnt some perl and PHP, how does Java on the server differ from
those two, other than it being more difficult for me to learn and use?
but more importantly, the first question, why it "shines on the
server", as opposed to the desktop, and also as opposed to other
languages.

 

[Roedy Green]

Can someone explain to me please why Java "shines on the server"?

It originally replaced C and CGI. Java is more efficient since it does
not have to load a program for every transaction.

PHP is not OO. It falls apart for a complex project.

Perl has a syntax only its father could love. Again it is suited
primarily for small projects written by a single author.

 

[=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Peter_Sch=E4fer?=]

It originally replaced C and CGI. Java is more efficient since it does
not have to load a program for every transaction.

* there is a cross-platform standard: J2EE
* there is a choice of application servers for all needs (Websphere,
BEA, Oracle, Sun ONE, just to name a few)
* Java is less vulnerable to viruses

PHP is not OO. It falls apart for a complex project.

same for ASP

the only technology that may come close is .NET, but then you are locked
to Micro$oft.

 

[Niels Dybdahl]

... why it "shines on the

server", as opposed to the desktop, and also as opposed to other
languages.

The two big disadvantages of Java on the desktop is slow startup and huge
RAM-consumption (30-200 MB per application). These disadvantages are of much
less importance for a server application, because the server application is
usually always running and there is enough RAM on the server.

Compared to C and C++, many common causes of failure have been removed in
Java: It can not fail on pointers pointing to something non-existing (it can
still have null-pointers). It can not get out of boundaries by mistake and
overwrite data structures belonging to other parts of the application. The
garbage collection eliminates the problems involved in deallocating objects.
Exceptions and try-catch constructs makes it easy to write stable
server-applications. Other languages like C and Pascal lack these
capabilities.
The well-known buffer-overflow problems allowing viruses to exploit servers
are non-existent in Java applications.

Niels Dybdahl

 

[Amir Pashazadeh]

- Server applications are (I don't mean small web-sites!) usually big
applications, not suitable for one person to implement. Java is designed for
team-work, and beacuse of very good level of implementation of OO in this
language maintenance of the applicaiton (remember the application is huge,
so the maintenance is much harder than small applications) is much easier
and more reliable than non OO languages such as PHP,

- Java has many technologies specialized for server-side applications, such
as JSP, Servlet, EJB, ... and some technologies which are more suitable for
server-side applciations such as JMS, JDBC, ...

- because of some features such as automatic resource management (most
important one is the garbage collector) there are less problems in long-time
running applications written in Java than other languages....

- because of some sort of seperation of concerns in some of server-side Java
technologies (especially EJBs), the programmers just focus on the business
logic, not the middleware stuff...

and many more things ...

Amir Pashazadeh

 

[Matthew Lundberg]

The two big disadvantages of Java on the desktop is slow startup and huge
RAM-consumption (30-200 MB per application). These disadvantages are of much
less importance for a server application, because the server application is
usually always running and there is enough RAM on the server.

Compared to C and C++, many common causes of failure have been removed in
Java: It can not fail on pointers pointing to something non-existing (it can
still have null-pointers). It can not get out of boundaries by mistake and
overwrite data structures belonging to other parts of the application. The
garbage collection eliminates the problems involved in deallocating objects.
Exceptions and try-catch constructs makes it easy to write stable
server-applications. Other languages like C and Pascal lack these
capabilities.
The well-known buffer-overflow problems allowing viruses to exploit servers
are non-existent in Java applications.

On most platforms, C does have exception handling. See setjmp/longjmp. Of
course, this mechanism is much harder to use in practice than a try/catch
block. The biggest downside to C is that OO programs become very hard to
understand. C++ fixes this to a certain extent, but doesn't remove many of
the dangerous constructs of C.

 

[Mike Henley]

- Server applications are (I don't mean small web-sites!) usually big
applications, not suitable for one person to implement. Java is designed for
team-work, and beacuse of very good level of implementation of OO in this
language maintenance of the applicaiton (remember the application is huge,
so the maintenance is much harder than small applications) is much easier
and more reliable than non OO languages such as PHP,

Is java any good for an individual programmer? is it worth learning or
should i stay with PHP? what about PHP 5 which introduces OO? and what
about OO scripting languages such as ruby and python?

- Java has many technologies specialized for server-side applications, such
as JSP, Servlet, EJB, ... and some technologies which are more suitable for
server-side applciations such as JMS, JDBC, ...

again, i've heard a lot about JSP; is it worth learning for an
individual programmer or should i stay with PHP? any advantages of JSP
over PHP? what about ease of learning and ease of use? what about

- because of some features such as automatic resource management (most
important one is the garbage collector) there are less problems in long-time
running applications written in Java than other languages....

- because of some sort of seperation of concerns in some of server-side Java
technologies (especially EJBs), the programmers just focus on the business
logic, not the middleware stuff...


and many more things ...

Amir Pashazadeh

thanks
also thanks to all others above who replied!