The java equivalent project in another team, took a 3 groups of programmers 4 attempts, 1 perl, 2 java, 3 java 4, c++, the 3rd iteration ran on a swarm of machines, and cost lots of money in bought in libraries. As far as I know this project never delivered.

In my working environment I was able to code in C, on a method by method basis, dynamically linking in corrected compiled code, while the simulator was running. The tool I chose was ST/X – Smalltalk/X.

To say that a dynamic language is not fast is simply ignorant – ST/X you can write your methods in C if you wish/have to.

To say that a dynamic language is not scaleable is also ignorant – I scaled the simulator to 3000x its original design capability. In fact is was Solaris that was not scaleable due to limits in the number of ports it would allow a single process to open, and the limits of stdio.h Yes we had one process handling 254 OSI connections easily.

To say that a dynamic language is not robust is really ignorant, because the vm just keeps going and exceptions can generally be handled gracefully. Every static language I have ever used tends to crash and burn hard.

And if you must ST/X can run scripts from your shell.

I didnt mean to make this an advert, but really and truly the tools discussed here are ALL a pretty poor choice for doing a big project. Why, because we know they have limits that we are likely to hit. Find the tool without limits, with the simlicity and the power, — why would you look back?

OpenOffice is written in C++. It uses Java for plugins and the import/export convertors are Java, but the bulk of the application is C++.

OpenOffice also ships with … Python.

“I use an IDE developed on a general purpose language (Eclipse).”
Eclipse is not a language actually, Eclipse was developed in Java,
as was JBuilder, Net Beans, Oh and btw. do you use Open Office,
if I’m not mistaken, that is written in Java.

So much for the bulk of Java being used for Web applications.

Assaf “As for project metrics — you bet! I measure that stuff.”
Which should make it easy to provide a productivity example that didn’t generate Web pages. I don’t need to see it :-)

As for project metrics — you bet! I measure that stuff.

I measure the development cycle, the tests, the maintenance. I measure maintenance after I release, and two years later when I have to go back to code I hardly remember.

I measure throughput, scalability, loads, data sizes. I measure how long it takes me to put a new feature from scratch, and how long it takes me to iterate to a new feature.

I know how long it takes me to do a Maven build, or run a unit test, or just push a new release out of SVN.

What’s software engineering if you’re operating in the dark on blank faith?

“my personal experience is about 5x to 10x the productivity”
How do you know?
Have you been keeping project metrics?

PHP is mostly used for serving Web pages. As is Ruby, especially with the advent of Rails. I think Python is the one that has the larger share of non-Web apps.

I’m just not sure what’s wrong with that.

Web apps are not the be all do all. There are a lot of things that can’t be done as a Web app. But if you’re developing a Web app, why not pick the better language?

In co.mments, about half Ruby code serves Web page, half the code does background processing tasks, and the rest is used for builds and other management tasks (think Ant and CruiseControl).

As for productivity, my personal experience is about 5x to 10x the productivity. When I moved from C++ CGI to Java Servlets it was nothing against C++. It was fast, powerful, when Java was still in its infancy. But server-side Java was just too damn productive.

I wouldn’t go back. I’m just going forward.

Check out the Wikipedia entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_programming_language

Check out Monster or any other job board that lists jobs for Java. Do a blog search to see what most developers are doing in their day to day job. Mostly it’s Web apps.

I don’t see a problem with that. I think Web apps are super useful. They’re always on, they’re easy to upgrade, they’re accessible remotely and on small devices.

Outside of software development and listening to music, most of what I use are Web apps. Even in development I use bug tracking, Wikis, blogs, search, all of which are Web apps.

I’m not slamming Java for being a general purpose language. I run operating system developed on a general purpose language (C++), I use an IDE developed on a general purpose language (Eclipse).

But I’m also not ignoring the power of PHP, Ruby and Python.