PHP Devs, Ever Considered a Second Language?

[M. Johansson]

Originally posted by Dr Livingston
I'm in total agreement with you Karl.

As pointed out by M. Johansson though, that .NET will overpower Java through the marketing muscule of Microsoft - this is what I'm afraid of.

From what I read, I think Java is the better platform to develop for - I have absolutely no interest in .NET and Microsoft.

Have you actually given .NET a real test run? It definitely holds some big advantages over Java, especially for web developers - ASP.NET and ADO.NET really makes work easier. Not to mention that Visual Studio.NET is a very impressive IDE, especially for its low price. If you haven’t already, you might want to check out the Top 5 .NET Newbie Q and A here on SitePoint – a very good read.

And there is bound to be (guaranteed) security holes in .NET currently, and in the future; there always has been, and always will be with Microsoft.

There always will be security holes with ALL software, but I assume you are implying that Microsoft products are worse (and always will be) than other, which a rather broad assumption. Microsoft is, after all, repositioning themselves as a company with security as a top priority. Nobody expects them to succeed at once, but saying "there always will be big security holes in Microsoft products" is not very open minded. With that said, there will of course be security issues with .NET, especially when it grows popular. It will also need to take quite a bit of heat to become really secure and, in turn, popular. It took Java many, many years to get where it is today, after all.

[Karl]

The IDE is not the language, sure it helps, but it's not the language, there are some pretty damned hot IDEs for Java out there as well. I can see how ADO.NET makes things easier, but how does ASP.NET make things easier, but ASP.NET - it's a language, just like any other you have to learn e.g. JSP, PHP. So saying it makes .NET easier isn't really a valid point.

[Jeremy W.]

Actually, ASP.NET isn't a language. C# is the language.

[M. Johansson]

Originally posted by Karl
The IDE is not the language, sure it helps, but it's not the language, there are some pretty damned hot IDEs for Java out there as well. I can see how ADO.NET makes things easier, but how does ASP.NET make things easier, but ASP.NET - it's a language, just like any other you have to learn e.g. JSP, PHP. So saying it makes .NET easier isn't really a valid point.

.NET, with all it's aspects - IDE:s, languages and Libraries really does make development easier. Like Jeremy says, ASP.NET is not a language. I really recommend that you check out Top 5 .NET Newbie Q and A to see what I'm talking about.

As for IDE:s ... I'd like to quote the "Tools" section of TheServerSide.com's excellect comparison of Java and .NET:

The Sun J2EE Product Portfolio includes Forte, a modular and extensible Java-based IDE that pre-dates both Sun J2EE and .NET. Developers who prefer other IDEs for Java development are free to use WebGain’s Visual Café, IBM’s VisualAge for Java, Borland’s JBuilder, and more. Numerous 3rd party tools and open source-code products are available.

Microsoft has always been a strong tools vendor, and that has not changed. As part of its launch of .NET, Microsoft released a beta version of the Visual Studio.NET integrated development environment. Visual Studio.NET supports all languages supported by earlier releases of Visual Studio - with the notable exception of Java. In its place, the IDE supports C#, Microsoft’s new object-oriented programming language, which bears a remarkable resemblance to Java. Visual Studio.NET has some interesting productivity features including Web Forms, a web-based version of Win Forms, .NET’s GUI component set. Visual Studio.NET enables developers to take advantage of .NET’s support for cross-language inheritance.

Our conclusion is that Microsoft has the clear win when it comes to tools. While the functionality of the toolset provided by J2EE community as a whole supercedes the functionality of the tools provided by Microsoft, these tools are not 100% interoperable, because they do not originate from a single vendor. Much more low-level hacking is required to achieve business goals when working with a mixed toolkit, and no single tool is the clear choice, nor does any single tool compare with what Microsoft offers in Visual Studio.NET. Microsoft's single-vendor integration, the ease-of-use, and the super-cool wizards are awesome to have when building web services.

[Karl]

That happens to be one persons opinion, mine happens to be different, yes I do admit that MS does create a mean IDE when it comes down to it. But an IDE is not the language, and that was what is being discussed in this thread.

[HarryF]

Tool wise, they forget to look at Eclipse which thissite suggests is getting an active following from both commercial and open source vendors. I just have to keep mentioning it

[M. Johansson]

Originally posted by Karl
That happens to be one persons opinion, mine happens to be different, yes I do admit that MS does create a mean IDE when it comes down to it.

Well, first of all, it's actually the opinion of two people, who also happens to be two of the most prominent Java developers in the world. With that said, you are of course free to disagree - but I'd like ot have the facts straight.

But an IDE is not the language, and that was what is being discussed in this thread.

Then we have to extend the discussion, I'm afraid - and I think we already have. The language itself is little more than syntax, and rather uninteresting and pointless to debate, especially considering the fact that they almost always comes with some sort of framework - at least in the case of PHP, Java, .NET and Cold Fusion and that you would never ever in a real-life situation choose a development platform depending solely on language.

[M. Johansson]

Originally posted by HarryF
Tool wise, they forget to look at Eclipse which thissite suggests is getting an active following from both commercial and open source vendors. I just have to keep mentioning it

Do you have a link to a good comparison between Eclipse and existing Java IDEs?

[Jeremy W.]

We just hired a 7-year Java veteran at work. JBuilder is considered the best IDE by most Java shops, and he (after the "getting used to it" phase) loves VS.NET much more, as do the Delphi guys we have (Delphi won best IDE several years running).

TheServerSide.com is THE Java community on the net, so saying it is inconclusive (as being the opinion of a select few) or incomplete (because it doesn't feature one specific other IDE) really doesn't make sense to me.

Does Eclipse have all the features of JBuilder, Forte and Delphi? If not and it is, as I would guess, yet another free tool in development that Harry's recommending, then I'll continue to stand by the statement that VS.NET is the best IDE out there. Personal preference does play a role of course, but features, stability, price, team features, etc are all important as well. Personal preference is what you use when you have the money/choice/time. "The best" is what you use when it isn't your choice (when it's your job), when you don't have the time (because you're on a deadline) and when you don't have the money (because you aren't paying for it).

What are we debating here, though? Everytime the issue gets uncomfortably close to .NET being halfway decent, Harry will bring up some newfangled open source project that covers 1 singular feature of .NET. We did compile a list, and it would take 23 separate projects to equal the majority of the .NET feature list. That doesn't include what each feature does, just waht they are called in name only.

Personally, I would rather maintain one framework than 23, and counting. The hours necessary to evalute those 23, monitor the security holes in those 23 and train developers using those 23 would be horrendous. The Java guy we hired this week. He had done a Video Database project in JBuilder. Took him 45 hours to do it. He has worked 30 hours this week. In that 30 hours he learned .NET, learned VS.NET and completed the entirety of the Video Database.

[voostind]

He had done a Video Database project in JBuilder. Took him 45 hours to do it. He has worked 30 hours this week. In that 30 hours he learned .NET, learned VS.NET and completed the entirety of the Video Database.

Considering that:
a) He already knew Java, and we all know .NET is a Java rip-off (whether it's better or not is not the point here).
b) He had already build the entire project once (in Java), so he was familiar with everything in it (no surprises during development).

...I think that 30 hours is still a rather long time...

Anyway, I'm not going to participate in this discussion, because I don't care. At my job we use J2EE all over, so it's all Java, which is just fine by me, because I have a personal dislike of Microsoft (not their stuff, just the company). A while ago my company tried to start with .NET but we almost immediately stopped, because no customer wanted it. Maybe when (if?) .NET becomes mature and more customers want it we'll start using it, but until then, I'll be happily coding away in Java.

Oh, and my favorite development tool is IntelliJ IDEA. Beats the pants of JBuilder, Eclipse and VS.NET. But then, that's just a personal opinion

Vincent

[Jeremy W.]

1) He'd already built the project in C++ before he built it in Java
2) Perhaps the cross-platform knowledge he'd built was helpful, however he was also learning a new language, new framework and new IDE in that time

Every project we've ever built and then rebuilt in .NET has alwasy been done in record time, even when it's been built by teh same individual before.

Doesn't really matter, but I find much more work for .NET than for Java. Probably just circles of influence though.

Any demo/beta copies of IntelliJ IDEA I can try out?

[voostind]

Every project we've ever built and then rebuilt in .NET has alwasy been done in record time, even when it's been built by teh same individual before.

We do that too, but in Java instead of .NET. So this doesn't impress me at all...

Any demo/beta copies of IntelliJ IDEA I can try out?

Try here: http://www.intellij.com/idea/

Unlike Eclipse, this Java IDE is really fast. Also, it integrates very well with third party systems and command line tools (jUnit, Ant, CVS).

Another cool thing IDEA has is that it supports refactorings. Just select a refactoring from a drop-down list, and your code is automatically changed and checked. (Eclipse does this too, but not this extensive)

The only minus is that it's pretty expensive. But thankfully my boss didn't care too much about that.

Vincent

[Dr Livingston]

Yer, rock on

IBM does an enormous amount of work with Java, and they're basically the masters of magic when it's down to Java.

PHP Rocks but so does Java. ****, the whole world rocks once you put PHP and Java together.

Let's all rock

[Karl]

I just tried Eclipse under the IBM JRE and it flies along here, will have to try it under the JRE shipped with JBuilder and see what it's like then. I'm always open to new tools, off to look IDEA now

[Chris82]

Search Google for "IntelliJ EAP". This should bring up a link for their so called "Early Adaptors Program" which has beta releases of new Idea versions which are limited to 30 or 60 days.