Java, the actual language and API, does have quite a few real problems… too many to list here (a mix of native and object types, an abundance of abandoned APIs, inconsistent use of checked exceptions). But I’m offering an olive branch… Lets discuss the real problem and not throw the baby out with the bath water.

So what is the real problem in the this industry? Java, with its faults, has completely conquered web application programming. On the sidelines, charging hard, new languages are being invented at a rate that is mind-blowing, to also conquer web application programming. The two are pitted together, and we’re left with what looks a bunch of preppy mall-kids battling for street territory by break dancing. And while everyone is bickering around whether PHP or Rails 3.1 runs faster and can serve more simultaneous requests, there lurks a silent elephant in the room, which is laughing quietly as we duke it out in childish arguments over syntax and runtimes.

Tell me, what do the following have in common?

All the above industries are billion dollar players in our economy. All of the above industries write new COBOL and mainframe assembler programs. I’m not making this up, I work in the last industry, and I’ve interviewed and interned in the others.

For god sakes people, COBOL, invented in 1959, is still being written today, for real! We’re not talking maintaining a few lines here and there, we’re talking thousands of new lines, every day, to implement new functionality and new requirements. These industries haven’t even caught word the breeze has shifted to the cloud. These industries are essential; they form the building blocks of our economy. Despite this, they do not innovate and they carry massive expenses with their legacy technology. The costs of running business are enormous, and a good percentage of those are IT costs.

How expensive? Lets talk about mainframe licensing, for instance. Lets say you buy the Enterprise version of MongoDB and put in on a box. You then proceed to peg out the CPU doing transaction after transaction to the database… The next week, you go on vacation, and leave MongoDB running without doing a thing. How much did MongoDB cost in both weeks? The same.

Mainframes software is licensed much different. Lets say you buy your mainframe for a couple million and buy a database product for it. You then spend all week pegging the CPU(s) with database requests. You check your mail, and you now have a million dollar bill from the database vendor. Wait, I bought the hardware, why am I paying another bill? The software on a mainframe is often billed by usage, or how many CPU cycles you spend using it. If you spend 2,000,000 cpu cycles running the database, you will end up owing the vendor $2mil. Bizzare? Absolutely!

These invisible industries you utilize every day are full of bloat, legacy systems, and high costs. Java set out to conquer many fronts, and while it thoroughly took over the web application arena, it fizzled out in centralized computing. These industries are ripe for reducing costs and becoming more efficient, but honestly, we’re embarrassing ourselves. These industries stick with their legacy systems because they don’t think Ruby, Python, Scala, Lua, PHP, Java could possibly handle the ‘load’, scalability, or uptime requirements that their legacy systems provide. This is so far from the truth, but again, there has been 0 innovation in the arenas in the last 15 years, despite the progress of web technology making galaxy-sized leaps.

So next week someone will invent another DSL that makes Twitter easier to use, but your bank will be writing new COBOL to more efficiently transfer funds to another Bank. We’re embarrassing ourselves with our petty arguments. There is an entire economy that needs to see the benefits of distributed computing, but if the friendly fire continues, we’ll all lose. Lest stop these ridiculous arguments, pass the torch peacefully, and conquer some of these behemoths!

Is Java the issue? Or are the industries that are still stuck in the 50's the problem?

Source:

Hate Java? You're fighting the wrong batte. (thecodemechanic.wordpress.com)