Heckroth Industries

Rant

Bl***y Java

Warning: this is a rant so if you’re a Java zealot it might wind you up. Also I am not looking at this from the point of view of someone who exclusively uses/Develops Java. I am looking at it from my point of view, someone who has to maintain/develop multiple systems using multiple languages.

I am currently having to get my head round using tomcat and Java for a web application I have to support. Why does everything with Java require it’s own tool when there are plenty of tools that already do the same job? First I have to use maven to get the package as well as build it, then I have to use ant to install it. Why not just use Make for building and installing and CVS, Subverstion, Git, etc for getting the package. I have read that it is faster to use Maven and ant for building your Java apps, but that isn’t a good reason to have do it differently it is a good reason to write a better Java compiler that will run just as quick when used in Maven, Ant, Make or even called manually from the command line.

Then you need tomcat to serve the Java web app. Why not simply work with CGI standards used by other web servers (Apache, lightHTTPd, even IIS). Of course you need to put Apache in front of tomcat to get it running on a standard port. OK you can use IPTables to redirect ports 80 and 443 to tomcats, but then you loose the ability to do things sensibly through Apache, like add in a few CGI scripts or do redirects in the same way to every other web server you are using.

Jason — 2010-09-02