Java - anyone tried it?

[Jeff.S]

I've just started learning Java (not Java Script) and wondered who else out there know any Java and how much?

 

So far i've got javac commandline line working to compile a simple hello world script :) but thats as far as i've got

[BlueDevil23]

I have not personally ventured into Java... but I'm pretty sure Gx works with it(Not sure if he's on the forums, be he is in chat sometimes, and I know you also frequent it).

parelem is sick with Java, I'm pretty sure she knows more about Java than she does PHP, but don't quote me on that. Hope that helps you out, or at least gives you some people to contact. :)

[a_bertrand]

Hi,

I developed for many years with Java (and still do occasionally). I stopped working with it for a few reasons:

- Java applet are really unstable. Which means, load an applet, switch to another page, come back to the first one and suddenly your browser crash. This situation is not new, and doesn't seams to have any solution even after about 10 years.

- Java is a compile one and run everywhere, unfortunately it doesn't really runs like that, and many times your nice looking GUI on one platform doesn't run or doesn't look nice on the second one.

- Java is not compatible with... Java, as each version of Java introduce new features and removes old ways of doing things, your users will be required to upgrade their Virtual Machine in order to make things work. Unfortunately old Java soft may not work anymore. And this is simply painful.

- Bad memory management: The garbage collector do have some bugs... and after a long usage you may get the mighty out of memory exception, without any solution to solve it. I do know many companies which reboots their servers every night to avoid such situation. Something I never had on PHP nor in C#

The good parts of Java:

- Graphics speed is quiet good (even if not like DirectX / Open GL unless you use special libraries)

- Applets when they run can do nice things

- The possibility (with some efforts) to make your application run on multiple platform

- A good documentation and lot of examples

- Some nice free developer environment (even if I prefer Visual Studio).

[Jeff.S]

Some good points there @a_bertrand but didn't manage to put me off :) Its somthing im learning out of intrest mainly (for now) but my view about it may change over time for the issues you mentioned

[Nickson]

I've also been using java for a couple of years now - nothing business related however - so I just know my bits and bobs. The nice thing is that with java you can make desktop applications AND website applets AND jsp/jsf webpages (they each have their specific things though, but java always comes back!). Java can be difficult, but it can also made easy and quite fast with the correct tools and other knowledge, if you know UML/OOAD for example, there are tools that can create a base java code from those "design languages". Of course, you need to know those things that come before java - it's nice, but it takes a while before you actually get to java.

But java his some big buts too, as A_Bertrand already mentioned, I don't know how recent his experience is, and how long he has been working with java, but java can be a real pain. jsp/jsf has the least of these problems as they are actually similar to php or asp, background code processed on the server, html code presented to a user. Applets already run in a browser, so before a user can run the applet, he/she needs to have the correct JDK installed on the computer in order to work. If you program in an older java version, code might be deprecated in newer version (other way around can give the very same problem). And as extra for the applets, you have the problem with browser versions (yay!) just like css and html, IE and FF use different ways of loading java applets. As a last, applications have the same problem as any other non-java application, there is a huge difference in OS platforms, once uses Win XP another uses Win 7, not to mention all linux distributions. But also remember that it has all these problems because it also offers a lot!

If you would like to learn something new, or a new challenge, don't be afraid to start with java. As we already mentioned, it has it flaws but it can do actually a lot, a very lot! And all of this while it isn't that hard. May I also note that java has an excellent community, is open source, has a big company behind them like SUN, has almost perfected tools (like netbeans), and can be integrated with quite a lot. Even adding mysql to your java project isn't that hard. I have actually enjoyed java now and then, but it has bored me as well :P I would say, go for it and if you do have any questions, we'll be here to help you.

[Zeggy]

I've only used java for desktop/mobile applications, not jsp or applets.

Personally, I think it's far too verbose. :P

But apart from that, I don't really have any problems with it.

[Vali]

I used java for websites for a bit more than one year .

For websites, it sux big time. It takes 1 week to do something you would o in php in 1 day.

BUT, it has a few good things, so if you use it for your chat server, and other things like that, then it's good for that, NOT for websites.

Used java/struts/hibernate/catalina/etc.

[canibalstew]

Java help

I am doing an assignment that must be done and I am stuck if anyone can walk throught this java program and help me get it working I will pay them for their help..

it is a simple program, so it will be easy for any with a good base knowledge of java.

[Guest cablebox]

I use java for programming my FIRST Robotics Team that I mentor. It is a very easy to learn language, but it has many disadvantages.

It has many bugs which you have to sort out, and it is a very demanding programming language. I have not tried it for web, but I believe you will encounter similar problems.

[guinevere]

Java is always having problems.:(