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Ask HN: Any web startups using Java?

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Re: Ask HN: Any web startups using Java?

#11
post #3

I've be very scared of a web startup that chose Java over Python or Ruby. Why subject yourself to Java? RoR and Django are both solid platforms (among others).

J2EE and J2SE are also solid platforms...

but only the enterprise developers seems to be caring about Java platforms. Freelancers / hackers rarely use Java.

Re: Ask HN: Any web startups using Java?

#12
It's not a strict either/or. Even those who are using more dynamic languages/frameworks for their web-facing services may use Java for deeper infrastructure: Lucene/SOLR for search, Hadoop/HDFS for large data-mining, HBase/Cassandra for big-NoSQL tables.

Re: Ask HN: Any web startups using Java?

#14
I'm involved in multiple startups using Java - both the language and more broadly the JVM (Groovy, Scala).

Despite all the bad news you might hear, as long as you stay clear of the bloated enterprise stuff it's a great platform and environment for a startup.

Hosting used to be an impediment but these days VPS make it dead easy to run Java stuff.

Re: Ask HN: Any web startups using Java?

#16
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

J2EE and J2SE are also solid platforms...

but only the enterprise developers seems to be caring about Java platforms. Freelancers / hackers rarely use Java.

Depends on what you mean by freelancers.

There's an impression that RoR is the language of choice for hackers because so many web-apps are built by it.

Web consulting firms use Java all the time because it's a proven technology with tons of flexibility. In RoR, the moment you step outside of the conventional MVC model; you are pretty much hosed, you have to write from scratch a lot of stuff that folks in Java have already enterprise platforms for. Specifically, if you want to do crazy data modeling with custom lazy-loading/cascading; or if you want to integrate some kind of high performance message system client-side; or have some kind of custom encoding/decoding of data objects from server-side to client-side (e.g., Rails to Flex/Silverlight). You pretty much have to rip up the whole rails framework.

RoR/Python is programmer's proverbial hipsterism to show how hip you are. But I would rather use Java when I need to deliver in actuality since you can't get laid anyways by impressing programmers.

Re: Ask HN: Any web startups using Java?

#17
post #14

I'm involved in multiple startups using Java - both the language and more broadly the JVM (Groovy, Scala). Despite all the bad news you might hear, as long as you stay clear of the bloated enterprise stuff it's a great platform and environment for a startup. Hosting used to be an impediment but these days VPS make it dead easy to run Java stuff.

//bloated enterprise stuff//

by this you mean the frameworks like Spring, Struts or the buzzwords like JMS, EJBs?

Re: Ask HN: Any web startups using Java?

#18
At http://www.yottaa.com, we use Java for a variety of our components. The web interfaces is built using ruby/rails/mongodb. The distributed components are built using Java. I find that Java gives us the ability to rollout multiple distributed components using a single codebase easier than other languages. Tools, knowledge, and libraries for building these components are readily available making it easy to get up and running.

We don't use JEE in any form, but the Java language and runtime is used and works extremely well on the cloud infrastructures. We built out a very simple upgrade mechanism to roll out new code, and by keeping components independent of each other we can scale our infrastructure easily.

Re: Ask HN: Any web startups using Java?

#19

Generalization ahead Java is mostly snubbed in web startup land and associated with boring corporate work. More discussion here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1378815

There is a good chance that the more 'boring corporate' people tend to keep to themselves more. I don't imagine serious startups are always glaring things in your face about the technologies they use, which comes off as 'web startup land' to people who are willing to read that kind of stuff. (not that I'm any different)

I bet there's a whole other demographic of serious business people who are busy getting things done instead of discussing unrelated matters, or in other words, doing things that aren't work-related.

Re: Ask HN: Any web startups using Java?

#20
post #17
post #14

I'm involved in multiple startups using Java - both the language and more broadly the JVM (Groovy, Scala). Despite all the bad news you might hear, as long as you stay clear of the bloated enterprise stuff it's a great platform and environment for a startup. Hosting used to be an impediment but these days VPS make it dead easy to run Java stuff.

//bloated enterprise stuff// by this you mean the frameworks like Spring, Struts or the buzzwords like JMS, EJBs?

i guess stuff like EJB, JMS. Spring is kinda lightweight compared to those frameworks/platforms.
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