log4p

Today the serverside featured a post with the eye-catching title ‘Java: Dead Like COBOL, Not Like Elvis?‘

The interview linked from the post is pretty negative about Java and Ruby on Rails is mostly used as an example of how stuff could be done better. Well…. I really think they are comparing apples and oranges.

Alltough I really like ruby I think it lacks a lot of ‘features’

• cross platform support (think AIX, HPUX, PocketPC, Symbian)
• cross platform fat client support (AWT/Swing/SWT)
• tooling support for refactoring and RAD
• tooling support for style checking like PMD and Checkstyle
• compiletime checking
• …

I actually think Ruby (on Rails) is a good thing to happen to Java. Projects like Maven2 and for example Equinox really seem to benefit from features ‘borrowed’ from Ruby. Also colleagues suddenly start to want mixins and runtime method manipulation… which can also be done by unsing Springs’ excellent AOP support.

So, at the moment for me, Ruby for the weekend, Java for the work! If the company I work for actually manages to get a Ruby customer (they are searching) count me in!