"Why Ruby is Better Than Java"

Dec 18, 2005 5:13 PM
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Java's problems — from the arcane form of a "Hello World" application to the awful standstill when a Java applet starts on WIndows — are manifold.

But Bruce Eckel believes that the death knell might be how Java is poorly-suited to building most websites — a task that has often been presented as the languages forté:

As a result of all [the hassles of setting up Enterprise Java Beans], someone said "hey, all I want to do is create a database and use it from the web. Why should I do all that work?" As it turns out, such activities seem to be about 90% of all we ever do in "Enterprise" programming, and EJB 1/2 were solving an entirely different problem, and making the 90% incredibly difficult in the process. Thus, the [Ruby on] Rails approach of "just connect the database to the web."

Comments: "Why Ruby is Better Than Java"

Why Ruby?

Companies are going to be a lot more comfortable with the "maturity" of php in the mindshare of their programmers. Ruby is too new (at this point) to be taken seriously in corproate environments, in my opinion.

Posted by: Bubba on December 19, 2005 12:00 PM | permalink

As someone who works with PHP every day, I can assure you that it is vastly inferior to Ruby or Python when it comes to doing "real" programming (i.e. OOP) and legibility.

Why Ruby? Rails.

The main reason why PHP is omnipresent is that it's really, really easy to build simple websites that view/edit/add/delete information in a database. Rails is seriously cutting into that territory.

Posted by: Joe Grossberg on December 19, 2005 12:21 PM | permalink

...but that line of reasoning goes out the window when you consider the age of each platform.

php is failry stable, has been around a while, and is "mature" in the sense that its not at a 1.0 release and there's a large (much larger than RoR) install base already. Very low risk, fairly quick ROI for the IT manager.

RoR is new, flashy, and might just be dead/obsolete tomorrow. While there might be a similar ROI as php, there is much more assumed risk. Writing a mission critical application framework in RoR would be very, very risky IMO.

If folks are going away from C/C++/PERL, it would make sense to migrate to the next stable platform (php) instead of the newest bleeding edge technology.

In this case, as with most other items in the IT space, the strength of a particular product (new and fresh) is also its weakness.

ok, enought of this...I need to get back to figuring out object iterator in php5 ;)

Posted by: Bubba on December 19, 2005 4:58 PM | permalink

Ah well, they could still go with Python.

It's older than Java, technically, and has been thoroughly battle-tested.

Posted by: Joe Grossberg on December 19, 2005 5:26 PM | permalink

No more comments! Either someone has violated Godwin's Law, I'm tired of the discussion or, most likely, the ten-week window has closed. You can, however, contact me through email.