Why Java is still used in web development?

Question

Why Java is still used in web development? I'm just curious..

Answer 1

There are a number of reasons:
1. It is by no means a dead language. There are thousands of Java developers out there.
2. Many available Java developers means that it relatively easy to find maintenance programmers if necessary.
3. The Java / J2EE architecture is robust and reasonably elegant. It makes it possible to architect well built applications.
4. The free tools available for it are enterprise ready. For example, Apache / Tomcat / JBoss are a solid foundation to build a web-app from.
5. Excellent support for developers. Eclipse is one of the best developer platforms available. Ant and Maven support for Java is excellent.
6. There is a good availability of third-party (and open-source) libraries and Eclipse plug-ins for most of the additional functionality that might be needed but does not come in the core libraries.
7. There is also great support tools from commercial vendors: ORacle; IBM / Rational; etc.
8. Updated versions with newer language constructs are constantly being developed.

In short, it is a good tool for the job. It is compares favourably to other development platforms (.Net, Ruby, etc), and perhaps is better than some.

Answer 2

One big reason I think is because it's platform independent meaning they can easily run on all operating systems as long as you have the Java Runtime Environment installed. This could allow you to, for example, compile code in Windows and deploy on Unix.

Answer 3

Simple. It's a cross platform environment, that is clearly defined, and controlled. Sure, Sun has a big deal of say in what is available in the Java environment, but there is plenty of 3rd party support and development in the Java environment.

Yes, Java applications start up slightly slower than Native applications, but take a look at VUZE... Once it's started, it's nearly native speed (or at least it was when I was using it). With the JIT (Just in Time) compilers, code caching, and other features, there isn't much of a reason that there would be a major speed penalty...

Answer 4

I would also add that while this is only a con against .Net, your application server doesn't have to be Windows so it is cheaper to throw more hardware at it.

Answer 5

For the same reason as why COBOL and FORTRAN still exist. Because the language has proven itself to be robust and reliable.

Compare it with cars. Some people want the latest models because it has more power, better speed, improved features and whatever more. Others will just use a reliable car that's made to last for many years without much need for additional maintenance. Some buy a new car every 3 years, others will use their cars for half a century or more.

Answer 6

When talking about Java & the web, people seem to happily mix things by concentrating on Java applications deployed with Web Start (or even Applets), and forgetting that Java is a common language for implementing plain old dynamic web sites (or web applications). The latter is especially true for larger, more "enterprisey" systems. Even if on the desktop Java never really took off, on the server side it certainly did.

Without going into much detail, a couple of reasons why Java is used for creating web sites / applications:

• It's a tried and true approach for building large-scale web apps. Either using just the basic (Java EE) technologies of Servlets and JSP, or newer frameworks built on top of those, such as JSF, Wicket or Google Web Toolkit. (Just one example of high scalability: Gmail is implemented in Java, using Google Web Toolkit.)
• A mind-boggling amount of Java libraries exist, for all kinds of tasks — both open-source and commercial ones. If you need some in the backend of your app it may make a lot of sense to do the whole app using the same technology.
• There are a lot of skilled Java developers out there — something that may affect tech desicions when launching (larger) projects
• When creating a web interface for, or integrating into, an existing Java enterprise system (which are common) it may be beneficial to use the same language

Edit: I also agree with Doug about the tools and developer support. For example, IntelliJ IDEA may well be the most advanced IDE for any language (and I've heard this also from people who've used Eclipse and Visual Studio extensively... ;-) )

Answer 7

It's ubiquitous. The tools are great across the board. It's powerful. The community is huge. There is an amazing amount of available libraries / products / toolkits / frameworks. The JVM is great.

Answer 8

You can build cathedrals with this language. Those tend to stand for centuries.

Answer 9

Since Java doesn't run on the iPad, doesn't that hurt Java web development? Developing a web application that supports desktop and mobile is a possible path, but if your site uses Java or Flash, you have eliminated that opportunity.

We have a web application that is for both desktop and mobile (supports swiping, zooming, and such using jQuery). We decided against Java, Flash, and Silverlight because they do not work with iPad. The iPad is a growing base and web applications will have to keep up to support it.

It will be interesting to see how this affects web development with Java... time will tell.