For whom the bell tolls

It was like poking a wasp’s nest … Don’t know what I’m talking about? Bruce

Tate, the author of several bestsellers on Java, said in an interview that Java was

running out of steam in the face of emerging technologies. That was the spark,

or in terms of the wasp’s nest, the stone that stirred up a heated

debate.

It hardly matters whether you agree with Tate’s arguments about lower productivity compared with Ruby on

Rails and a high degree of anachronism in the JCP. What’s striking is how many

developers are irritated by the mere suggestion that Java might not be the best platform, whichever sense of “best”

you choose. Web application development seems to be the touchstone.

There are groups of fanatical adherents to particular languages (PHP, Java, RoR, Perl, Python,

C#) whose partisan view of the world through their language or platform

has cost them a rational perspective. I always stare in speechless amazement at all the would-be experts

who beat their chests in defense of their own truth.

Fortunately, the truth usually lies somewhere in the middle. Bruce Tate probably isn’t

the best Java developer under the sun, but you can’t deny him two qualities. First, he’s

someone I’d call a visionary, and I should add that I don’t share all his

views. Second, in my eyes he can call things by their proper names,

and some people just don’t know what to make of that.

Those who can’t make sense of it are usually behind the hysterical cries into

the darkness, so to speak. I used to put that hysteria down to youthful recklessness, so

I more or less automatically assumed the PHP crowd would be the most aggressive. I’d like

to apologize to the reasonable, open-minded part of that group, because

over time I’ve found that every community has an extremist faction.

It would certainly be interesting to do serious research on what percentage of each community

belongs to its extremist faction. I have to admit that I was part of one myself

for a time. Fortunately, I realized soon enough that this wasn’t the way to go. I also realized that

the extremists always speak up when they feel the bell tolling for them …