David Geary talks about Ruby and Java:
As most of you know, I was on the JSF 1.0 Expert Group, so you might be curious to know how I would compare Rails and JSF. We’ll leave that to another post, or perhaps set of posts, but for now let me say one thing: JSF was created for tool vendors; Rails was created for developers. A fair percentage of what Rails does (perhaps 80-90%) could be implemented in a killer JSF-based IDE that featured incremental deployment, active record, etc., but we’re simply not there yet in the JSF world.
Tools are great. Tools help you solve really complex problems, they reduce the workload. If you need tooling, it’s a sign that you’re solving a complex problem. If you need tooling to do anything useful with Java, it’s time to realize Java is a complex problem to solve.
It doesn’t have to be that way. A good programming language does not stand between the developer and the end-user. A good programming language is invisible. It lets you see straight through, so you can focus on the real complex problems your users are facing.
I started coding in Java when Sun released it for beta testing. Aided with a text editor, command line compiler and some HTML reference files, I used it to solve real complex problems. Write, run, learn, repeat until you nailed it. Take that C++!
Today, I need a gigabyte of Java tooling, 10+ PDFs for “handy” reference, and a master plan for each simple code change … I wrote most of this post while waiting for one build to complete.
Look at the Web. So many interesting and innovating services coming out every day, it’s hard to keep track. Look closer. But how many of them are written in Java?
In less than ten years the big vendors took a language that was once innovative, edgy and full of promise, and turned it into the 21st century COBOL.
tags: programming java ruby