I'm catching up on the blog-o-sphere that I missed while out of town. I really like this post by Philip Greenspun (courtesy of Don Box); he likens Java to the SUV of software development.
It's been a while since I've touched anything Java (besides JavaScript -- which is very different despite the marketing folks at Netscape branding their scripting language after Java!), but I can relate to those students struggling to make heads or tails of the Java framework. Once I got beyond the complexities and became comfortable with Java, it was indeed powerful. I found switching to .Net (c# particularly!) pretty easy -- partly because of the hard work I invested in learning Java and the Java APIs. Somebody new to .Net might feel like it's an SUV, too, but I think the tools and support from the .Net community have matured more quickly than Java ever did. This is probably because Microsoft leverages the experience of others like no other business I know, and I come from a strong Visual Studio background. The convergence of the familiar and slick development environment, Visual Studio, with the powerful .Net platform really struck a chord with me.
Going forward, Microsoft (a software company) and .Net are very closely tied; compare that to Sun Microsystems (when it comes down to it a high-end server company) and Java -- not the same sort of relationship; what does Sun get from Java anyway?
Happy .Netting
I'm sure my 3 loyal fans were concerned, but no need to worry! I was on vacation to New England and then this hurricane thing hit . . . it really puts things into perspective. Luckily, our neighborhood has power; my unscientific survey of students in the .Net Setup and Deployment class from last night showed only 10% had power at their homes. It's astonishing!
Anyway, I'm climbing back into the blog saddle so stay tuned.
Finally, if anyone is looking for software developers in Maine, let me know -- I could be easily persuaded to spend some more time up there! Maybe I should arrange a programmer-exchange program where a “country mouse” programmer switches with a “city mouse” programmer. I'll have to look into it!