It's the competency barrier.
Ask HN: Why are there so few apps being built with JSP?
61–70 of 107 posts
Re: Ask HN: Why are there so few apps being built with JSP?
#62Just to set up one of the Java frameworks you list is already a lot of work and a lot of wrangling of XML. Without frameworks, it is probably OK if you already have a working web.xml. I used to just copy my working web.xml and modify it. Good luck if you want to create a working web.xml from scratch, though. The specification for a proper web.xml is a PDF with several 100 pages (last time I looked, a couple of years…
So they have very good and thorough documentation. Why is that a problem? In my experience, setting up web.xml is a matter of copying the prepackaged one and change a few lines to specify settings about your app.
It is unnecessarily verbose, just as Java itself. It is a problem because it makes finding and digesting the required information difficult. Unfortunately there seems to be only a choice between insufficient documentation (RoR) or too much documentation.
Anyway, if you are fine with Java, more power to you. The question was "why do few people here use Java" not "why nobody should use Java".
Re: Ask HN: Why are there so few apps being built with JSP?
#63A few major reasons: - The verbosity of Java wears on me very quickly. - I can't stand working in an IDE. - Documentation is abysmal. - I'm not familiar with the ecosystem (so I don't know what to use and when -- What's 'Struts'? What's 'Tiles'?) and there doesn't seem to be a place to learn.
- I can't stand working in an IDE.
Are you saying this because you mostly work with smaller web apps, or other reasons? For larger projects I find IDE's (especially Eclipse for JAVA indispensable).
Re: Ask HN: Why are there so few apps being built with JSP?
#64For me, it's purely emotional. My last class at Uni 2 years ago was a survey of web dev technologies. We built sites using ASP.NET, Perl, PHP and JSP. Java and asp.net were tied for worst experience ever. Setup and configuration of the Java stack was 2/3rds of the project. And, that's after taking 2 years of Java in school. Setting up a Java stack on a Ubuntu or a Windows box was equally as painful for me at the time…
Agreed on the emotional. I have worked on several JSP sites that are 5 or 10 years old. In every case the JSP code is terrible. In all there was not a clear understanding of the MVC model. Sure there was some MVC handwaving, but for the most part there was a lot of java code doing bits of this and that which should be in the model.
Another problem is the 5 to 15 minute compile, deploy, restart the server cycle.
And the nasty use of XML to integrate the half dozen frameworks which are never consistent from client to client. All of this is a huge blow to productivity.
Re: Ask HN: Why are there so few apps being built with JSP?
#65I used to write desktop apps and also do drivers and VxDs for Windows. One of the things I strongly disliked about that work is that you are working in an environment where there is a huge amount of infrastructure that you are intimately dependent upon and that is hidden from you.
Java brings that kind of thing to the server, and I want no part of it.
Re: Ask HN: Why are there so few apps being built with JSP?
#66I used to write desktop apps and also do drivers and VxDs for Windows. One of the things I strongly disliked about that work is that you are working in an environment where there is a huge amount of infrastructure that you are intimately dependent upon and that is hidden from you. Java brings that kind of thing to the server, and I want no part of it.
Just to be fair - if this is your criteria, Rails is worse than most Java stacks.
Re: Ask HN: Why are there so few apps being built with JSP?
#67-steep learning curve compared to rails, django, grails, etc
- lots of configuration (I mean a lot, no convention over configuration)
- application servers are not easy, tomcat can be a nightmare in term of rapid deployment/undeploy routines, just think about heroku on the other hand
Re: Ask HN: Why are there so few apps being built with JSP?
#68Actually, there are far more apps being built on various Java stacks than the alternatives - it's just that the people using them collect a paycheck and go home at 5 rather than blogging about it. The heavyweight, large business and government market is almost exclusively Java
Also, lots of people judge Java frameworks based on monstrosities like J2EE, Struts or Spring. But there are several very nice, truly lightweight Java frameworks, and even more for alternative JVM languages. The Java stack often does suck, but it doesn't have to suck.
Re: Ask HN: Why are there so few apps being built with JSP?
#69You're asking this question on a site that is "startup focused" which means they aren't going to have a team of 20 developers churning out java byte code...they're going to be using more modern, dynamic languages like Python and Ruby because the popular full-stack frameworks that are behind Python and Ruby are better suited to get ideas off the ground as opposed to the monolithic JEE stack.
Re: Ask HN: Why are there so few apps being built with JSP?
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
See my reply here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1535945
Whoa, no need for the stupid comments. I wouldn't suggest a full fledged app in JSPs, yes thats insane ;-). Although, years ago I wrote blog where I could email my blogs in and I remember that first night I didn't want to set up a war and just wrote a straight JSP...I was only looking and I didnt want to wait. Obviously that is not a long term solution. However, having something that's wrong is better than not having…
I never meant to call anybody on here stupid, but it's how I felt about that guy back then.
It's difficult to quantify the increase in productivity using Django - since I never wrote the same project twice and a lot depends on the Java frameworks you use and the type of apps you write - but I certainly feel more productive and: happier! A lot can be explained by the fact that I'm basically forced to do the whole compile-war-deploy cycle on my current Java project and that Python allows me to write real generic code.
Be sure to first check out the tutorials in the Django docs because setting up a project for the first time can be a bit intimidating. Totally worth it, though ;)