Scripting languages dominates Web 2.0
We are seeing signs of age and dissatisfaction of Java recently. PHP and Ruby becomes popular choice for Web 2.0 development. ".NET" has increasing number of usage comparing to J2EE. So, the common question that pops up to everyone’s mind is "Will Java Die?". Yes, every language has its lifespan and I believe Java will not live forever. The key is whether it will die soon or whether it can evolve and continue to sustain. To answer the question, I need to temporarily put myself to a position to pick a language to learn. Then I see the reason why PHP and Ruby becomes so popular.
Advantage of PHP or Ruby
- Easier to learn
- Most of web hosting company supports them in cheap price. You hardly find a web hosting company provides full support of J2EE under $10 US dollars.
- You can find lots of php components available on the Web and it is very easy to install. Looks like PHP is designed for Web development from ground up.
Honestly, I will choose it for Web 2.0 development if you ask me. Go check my site: www.justproposed.com. It is created in PHP. Now, whether I lose my confidence in Java anymore? Not at all. Why? Because I don’t see Java as a language but a platform.
Java is more than a language
PHP is good but it is more on ad hoc web development for prototyping the concept. Once your site grows big, there are many issues related to enterprise-scale development like clustering, caching, transactional integrity, thread-pooling, security...etc. PHP is pretty bad at this stuff. I don’t see a platform as rich as Java for these tasks. On the other hand, .NET is the one with head to head competition with Java. However, it is not platform independent plus it is a very close environnment. If there is any problem in the platform level, you are pretty much out of luck. On the other hand, Java is not sitting still. You can see the scripting support in Java 1.6 that gives you freedom to pick the language syntax you like but continues to leverage the power of Java platform. I would see more and more people using JRuby or JPython in the future. Yes! They can co-exist, why reinvent the wheel?
