This speaks to me, not only as a reformed Java person, but also as the owner of a Toyota
Prius and a Honda Civic Hybrid...
"Our students this semester in 6.171, Software Engineering for Internet Applications
have divided themselves into roughly three groups. One third has chosen
to use Microsoft .NET, building pages in C#/ASP.NET connecting to SQL Server.
One third has chosen to use scripting languages such as PHP connecting to PostgreSQL
and sometimes Oracle. The final third, which seems to be struggling the most,
is using Java Server Pages (JSP) with Oracle on Linux. JSP is fantastically
simpler than "J2EE", which is the recommended-by-Sun way of building applications,
but still it seems to be too complex for seniors and graduate students
in the MIT computer science program, despite the fact that they all had
at least one semester of Java experience in 6.170.
<snip/>But the programmers and managers using Java will feel good about
themselves because they are using a tool that, in theory, has a lot of power for handling
problems of tremendous complexity. Just
like the suburbanite who drives his SUV to the 7-11 on a paved road but feels good
because in theory he could climb a 45-degree dirt slope."
Previous Topic
