This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Java Buzz
by Simon Brown.
Original Post: Debunking LAMP simplicity
Feed Title: Simon Brown's weblog
Feed URL: http://www.simongbrown.com/blog/feed.xml?flavor=rss20&category=java
Feed Description: My thoughts on Java, software development and technology.
Ken Wong has an interesting post called Barrier Of Entry where he talks about how Java based blogging applications don't have the same appeal as the PHP equivalents (emphasis mine).
I try to find a good personal blogger lately. And I learn a lesson why Java will never be as popular as other language like PHP.
...
My point is this. It takes a fair amount of server-side Java knowledge to make these bloggers work. And this is not the first time Iâve experienced this. End-users are expected to know something on Java, especially Tomcat setup (knowledge on web container), JDBC connection setup (knowledge on database setup), etc. This takes time to research, and an average Joe doesnât have patience to learn it.
...
On the other hand, setting up Wordpress is a snap.
The point I take away from this is that Java applications are perceived to be hard to install. So, it was with interest that I took a look at the WordPress installation guide and their Famous 5-Minute Install. On the face of it, the install does look fairly simple, but it does of course assume that you have Apache, PHP and MySQL installed and ready to run. And I love the bit about changing the "code" to configure your database. Even Ken admits that WordPress took 20 minutes to install and I imagine that he also had to configure a web container (Apache/PHP) and setup a database. I don't see how this is different to where he talks about these things in a Java context (above). This isn't an artefact of using Java and you could apply ^Java^PHP to the 2nd paragraph - it's applicable to any programming language.
For completeness, what does a Pebble install on a box consisting of nothing more than an operating system entail?
Download Java 5 and install it.
Download Apache Tomcat 5.5 and unzip it.
Download Pebble 2.0, take the pebble.war file and copy it to the webapps directory underneath the Tomcat directory created in step 2.
Run bin/startTomcat.sh or bin\startTomcat.bat
Optionally, install the Apache webserver and mod_jk to run in front of the Tomcat server.
Excluding download times, you can still be up and running with Pebble from almost nothing in a couple of minutes. I know this because I've done it. You also have a choice and can choose other servers like Jetty, Glassfish, etc over Tomcat.
My perception is the opposite of Ken's in that I perceive LAMP applications to be harder to install than Java equivalents. Just take a look at the WordPress install guide - I'm fairly sure that even the 5-minute version would scare off the average Joe that Ken talks about in his blog.
So, four things have come out of this.
I need to write an install guide that takes people through a complete Pebble installation on nothing more than a box with an operating system.
Java is still perceived to be "difficult" when compared to LAMP style solutions.
Database centric applications are still harder to install than those that don't need a database. Okay, so this is obvious, but why should it be this way? Adding Derby to the Mustang SDK was certainly an unexpected move, but just think of the potential. What if you could write a database centric application where the default out-of-the-box configuration used Derby? No database setup and zero configuration. Very appealing.
As a software industry, we need to let ourselves and our software be influenced by companies like Apple and concepts in software like Ruby on Rails - we need to make more software that "just works". I believe that we can do this regardless of the programming we choose underneath the covers.
Previous Topic
