Friday, June 10, 2011

Back to Java...

So I've finished working through my Ruby and Ruby on Rails books and I'm back on Java now. Working through Murach's Java Servlets and JSP.



I needed a refresher on JEE and this is a pretty good book. I've done JEE web development in a previous job, many years ago. At the time on that job - because it was highly abstracted by an in-house framework - I was largely doing cargo cult programming. Now, working through this book, JEE web stuff makes total sense. Trying out a new language and framework really does make you do a kind of "programmer's double take" and learn more about the ones you already know.

Why did I go back to Java? - I'm starting to approach the middle of the year now. I told myself that I would at least be looking into doing some work in the second half of the year (contracting or possibly freelancing). Java is really the only language/platform I can claim to know very well and have many years of commercial experience with. And let's face it - there are a lot of Java jobs out there.

One thing I've learned with the Ruby/Rails tryout is - Java web stuff doesn't suck anywhere as much as the Ruby crowd says. Sure, there is a fair bit of boilerplate in JEE, but it's not nearly as bad or unmanageable as it's made out to be. Also, I have to say that convention-over-configuration didn't really impress me all that much. I can see the benefits, but being a bit of a control freak, I actually like the idea of everything being spelled out in code (or config files) somewhere. When I get stuck, I like doing a Find In Files across the project source and seeing how everything connects - so this is mostly a matter of style and taste. It's disconcerting when I can't do that - because the framework has made assumptions for me which hide the flow from FIF.