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I don't see it
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Posted: Sep 1, 2004 1:36 PM
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What exactly is it about Java that "promotes communities" (other than a group think mentality and general shared lack of experience with other languages)?
Certainly it can't be Eclipse. Its just an IDE (and a bloody awful one at that - I use IDEA FWIW).
In fact, its easy to argue that the importance of the IDE would drop precipitously if Java had remotely consistent naming conventions (example - array.length, string.length(), collection.size(), ListModel.getSize(), etc).
Frankly I find the Java community to be narrow minded, lacking in imagination, and intolerant (poke around JavaLobby forums and make a post mildly critical of some java feature to get flamed and called a loser who needs to learn something).
I compare this to, say, the Squeak/Smalltalk community which is generally respectful and helpful. In addition the Squeak environment does much more to promote communities including:
A fairly exhaustive swiki
SqueakMap (a bit like CPAN - package catalog browser with auto download/install)
Monticello - version control that is much smarter and more structured than text files with preflighting ability and compatibility checking
SqueakSource - Monticello compatible sourceforge type of thing (which was written in a few days using Seaside).
In addition - this community created SUnit (cloned as JUnit), eXtreme Programming/agile, automatic refactoring, assistive code editing, and many other innovations claimed by the Java "community" (which has produced precious little in the way of new concepts - innovation in the style of MS I'd call it).
In fact, your list of most valuable java developers mostly lists people who have reimplemented old ideas in Java - or have implemented ideas that simply haven't caught on (JXTA and AOP come to mind).
So where is the community support inherent in Java? I don't see it at all. As far as I can tell, people use java because other people use java.
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