Learning Java

Ye' old general discussion board. Basically, for everything that isn't covered elsewhere. Come here to shoot the breeze, shoot your mouth off, or whatever suits your fancy.
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jayshields
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Post by jayshields »

Well I'm off to university in a month to study for a degree in Internet Computing and I have to learn Java for the first year I think.

I'm not overly happy with it, to be honest. Another university where I applied for Internet Systems: Business Computing the language of choice was JavaScript, I would've been happier with that. Developing desktop applications seems boring to me, like everything has been done.

I prefer to stick to what I know - I'd rather be brilliant at a couple of things than average in alot.
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panic!
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Post by panic! »

a few things things: good and bad!

1)Java programmers earn on average more than programmers of any other language.

2)Java is a great language, it's Object Oriented, tidy etc.

3)It's very big in the business world.

4)It's horribly un-deployable in the desktop world, Limewire won't run at the same time as iTunes on my laptop (only 512 ram). :(

5) I can't help but feel that the non standard dialogues and interfaces quite frankly suck :(.
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Christopher
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Post by Christopher »

Think of it this way - Learning Java will make you a better PHP programmer.
(#10850)
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Luke
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Post by Luke »

arborint wrote:Think of it this way - Learning Java will make you a better PHP programmer.
that's the goal! :D
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neophyte
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Post by neophyte »

arborint wrote:Think of it this way - Learning Java will make you a better PHP programmer.
That's what I thought. The language/syntax is so close to PHP 5. I'm not interested in Java for desktop deployment anyway, except perhaps Beans for db frontends. can anyone recommend some sites or books for learning struts/jsp?
alvinphp
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Post by alvinphp »

neophyte wrote:
arborint wrote:Think of it this way - Learning Java will make you a better PHP programmer.
That's what I thought. The language/syntax is so close to PHP 5. I'm not interested in Java for desktop deployment anyway, except perhaps Beans for db frontends. can anyone recommend some sites or books for learning struts/jsp?
Instead of struts you should look into Spring and Hibernate (and jsp/servlets/javabeans/pojos).

And I would not follow a java book written in 1997 for web applications. For one JSP did not come out till 1999. And then the recommended architecture has changed a lot since then. And I don't see PHP and Java (JSP/Servlets/EJBs/JBs) similar at all. You can mimic PHP by using JSP and scriptlets, but that is not the recommended (or best) way.
alvinphp
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Post by alvinphp »

neophyte wrote:But I can't figure out why it isn't more common. Is it a speed issue? Is the language that difficult? Absence of a solid IDE? Or have I not looked around much?
It is because most hosts do not offer it and the ones do charge a lot more for what you get. I am guessing the reason for this is Java does not work on the two most popular web servers Apache and IIS. You need a servlet container like Tomcat in addition to Apache/IIS. And then every time you add a new java project you need to stop/start tomcat making it even more difficult to on shared hosting.
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daedalus__
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Post by daedalus__ »

Daedalus likes C# but hasn't looked at Java yet.

<offtopic>
Daedalus also heard that game performance for games written in C++ can be 20% better than games written in C#, if they are written correctly.

I do not know how true that is but I saw it in a Microsoft webcast.
</offtopic>
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feyd
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Post by feyd »

Daedalus- wrote:Daedalus also heard that game performance for games written in C++ can be 20% better than games written in C#, if they are written correctly.
'tis true.
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Jenk
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Post by Jenk »

there is a reason PHP5 is close to Java..
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neophyte
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Post by neophyte »

alvinphp wrote:
neophyte wrote:But I can't figure out why it isn't more common. Is it a speed issue? Is the language that difficult? Absence of a solid IDE? Or have I not looked around much?
It is because most hosts do not offer it and the ones do charge a lot more for what you get. I am guessing the reason for this is Java does not work on the two most popular web servers Apache and IIS. You need a servlet container like Tomcat in addition to Apache/IIS. And then every time you add a new java project you need to stop/start tomcat making it even more difficult to on shared hosting.
Cow buckets! :D

So really the only way to deploy a Java app on the web is on a dedicated solution. Has anyone deployed on a shared host? What was it like?
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Jenk
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Post by Jenk »

Java is a 'standalone' (to a degree) application development platform. PHP Is not on par with Java.

However, Java has taken on the market area of web applets and serverlets, probably because it has not found much success when competing with the likes of C# due to difficulties with the JRE and cross platform availability.


Tomcat is for JSP.. JSP != Java. (Though it can make use of Java Beans.)
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neophyte
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Post by neophyte »

Jenk wrote: However, Java has taken on the market area of web applets and serverlets, probably because it has not found much success when competing with the likes of C# due to difficulties with the JRE and cross platform availability.
By availability I'm guessing you mean that users do not have JRE installed on their machines? C# runs on MS where there is no additional platform to install. Correct me if I'm wrong but C# is also a MS environment only language. I'm wondering if Open Office will change the equation as it forces folks to install the JRE.

I took a look at some JSP/Tomcat shared solutions. It looks like most of them have scheduled Tomcat restarts. You upload your tested app and wait for the scheduled reboot. And hosting appeared, after a casual survey, to be in the $8-$14 per month range.
alvinphp
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Post by alvinphp »

Jenk wrote:Tomcat is for JSP.. JSP != Java. (Though it can make use of Java Beans.)
Well, JSP is part of Java. JSP is converted to a Servlet by the container and a Servlet is really just a Java Object with a few unique abilities. Java is quite a large beast.
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panic!
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Post by panic! »

theres the MONO C# for linux and os x


http://www.mono-project.com/Mono:OSX


also java requires JRE

but c#.net requres .net framework...

JRE is slow by nature though.
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