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What More Can I Do?

Posted by editor on July 9, 2007 at 11:17 AM EDT

Does the user care how you write your apps?

In his blog, David Herron digs into a comment from a previous blog, that said "Consumers dont care about programming languages, they just want solution." David goes off on a different direction, and we'll get back there, but let's expand on that comment.

Does someone using a web browser, a word processor, a music player, a game, etc., really care what language it's written in? Likely not; few end-users are aware that there are multiple computer languages, or what the differences between them are. This is even more opaque on the web: does your favorite web app use Java, Ruby, or .NET, and could you even tell? On the desktop or the small device, there are traits that may give away the language: a Swing L&F that differs slightly from native widgets on the platform, a script that can only be invoked from the command line (or that brings up an ugly DOS window when run on Windows), a Flash app that exists only within the context of a web page, a Java app that looks and runs the same way on all platforms. But chances are, the user is not interested in using these traits as a means of divining the implementation language; they're more likely focused on the traits themselves, enjoying the ability to cross platforms or cursing the ugly DOS window.

Seen another way, it's not the language, it's what you can deliver to the user with your choice of language. For example, if you want to deliver your app to all users, regardless of OS, you may well choose Java, not necessarily because you like Java (though we hope you do!) but because that delivers a value to your users.

It seems like this is true not only of language choice, but of many process decisions too. Is it intrinsically valuable to users that your app is open-source... are that many people really going to look at your code and possibly hack on it... or is the value that open-source is potentially better tested, better understood, more secure, etc.? Does the user care about your testing methodology? No, they just care that the app doesn't crash. Agile or waterfall? DKDC, just give us an app that works.

It can be tempting for us as developers to get into discussions that are so focused on our own needs -- closures and properties anyone? -- that it's easy to overlook the big picture: does this stuff help us deliver value to users?

Returning our attention to today's Weblogs section and the entry People don't care about the programming language used to write their apps?, David Herron writes: "Speaking for myself ... maybe I'm a strange weirdo, but I care a lot about the full wholistic picture of the products and services around me, and a lot more attributes than whether the resulting product is good quality or not." Read on to understand where this ling of thinking takes him.

Jitendra Kotamraju has a tutorial on JAX-WS RI and Compression. "JAX-WS RI provides way to send/receive compressed messages on the client side. On the server side, many of the servlet containers like Glassfish, Tomcat provide support for compression. JAX-WS applications can take advantage of this to save bandwidth."

Finally, Carol McDonald offers a Sample Application using JSF, Seam, and Java Persistence APIs on Glassfish. "This Sample Store Catalog app demonstrates the usage of JavaServer Faces, a Catalog Stateful Session Bean, the Java Persistence APIs, and Seam to implement pagination of data sets."

In Java Today, an open question on TheServerSide asks Hot or Not: Widgets in the Java Portlet World. "As a portlet fan at my company, I was wondering how the current widget hype affects the portlet market. As widgets, in my view, have the same principles as portlets we have been creating for years, I don't really see why widgets became such a hyped thing in the blogosphere and beyond [...] Java portlets are in this same markets: exposing partial functionalities of bigger (bank-end) systems, like CRM systems, HRM systems and so on. So why didn't portlets get "bigger?""

Artima's Bill Venners suggests that Scala may offer some insights for the old static/dynamic typing arguments, which he describes as Programming with "Duh" Typing. "To what extent does the productivity of dynamic languages come from the lack of typed variables versus the reduction in "finger typing" required when you don't have to declare the types? The technique of type inferencing in static languages may shed new light on this old debate."

ZDNet's Ed Burnette has a surprising revelation in Apple sneaks Java support onto the iPhone. "Despite public comments by Steve Jobs that "Java's not worth building in [to the iPhone]", it turns out that Apple did just that by using an ARM-based CPU that supports Java natively. Programmers cannot (yet) take advantage of this, but Apple could, if they wanted, ship a software upgrade to enable it."

This week's Spotlight is on JSR-315, the Java Servlet 3.0 specification, which was recently accepted as a JSR by an 11-0 vote (with five abstentions). Nominations for membership in the expert group are now being accepted. The JSR's stated goals are to improve extensibility/pluggability, support ease-of-development through the use of new language features, and to better support next-generation web application development

Today's Forums, starts out with guidance from terrencebarr on bringing ME to new devices, in Re: Java Over EDB9315A (cirrus logic Board). "Opie is based on Qt, is that correct? If yes, both of the Java ME stacks in our community, phoneME Feature as well as phoneME Advanced, support Linux and Qt. I am not sure how much work exactly has to be done to port either to an Opie platform but the effort should be fairly moderate. So first you'll need to decide if you require a CLDC/MIDP stack (phoneME Feature) or a CDC/PP/PBP stack (phoneME Advanced) and then look at the appropriate project, download the code, and start experimenting yourself. You'll get help from our developers monitoring the forums . Hope this helps."

mthornton offers a tool for Managing versioned resources: "I have been working on a system to do all the tedious activities involved in maintaining a WebStart application with versioned resources. What I propose does not depend on any particular build system (although it could be wrapped/invoked by them). Given the resources and jnlp file(s) it will compare them with the existing content of a repository (the download area), assign versions to new resources, add version entries to jar files, sign and pack them (if required), and update the version.xml files. I have some preliminary documentation here."

cbaatz has practical advice on choosing a development language in Re: Develop in Java or not? "You should also consider the availability of programmers in your area. I know about eight years ago when I was finishing up my undergrad most schools were making a shift to Java as the main programming language taught. Starting a small programming business you really need to look at what resources you have, what best solves the customers needs (see the list of it has, it doesn't have above), and in the end what you are most comfortable. In my own opinion you need to look at your situation as what can you do now to best serve this one client while still setting you up with the biggest advantage for the next."

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Does the user care how you write your apps?
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