Archive for November, 2006

Why is tBits written in Java?

Posted on November 27, 2006. Filed under: Uncategorized |

This is the question which I need to answer again and again.
In brief, the following are the reasons:
1. Strongly typed

I am uncomfortable with the languages that are not strongly typed because you discover bugs only when you execute the code.You made a typo somewhere and you are not going to find it unless you actually execute the application. So, it is easier to introduce bugs that are dificult to find.
Moreover, the IDE is support is poor for non-strongly typed languages.

2. Easier to find good developers

When it comes to reality, the things are little different.
Read this story:

“A couple of months ago, my friend wanted to setup the intranet for his small industry. So, keeping his small budget in view, I setted up a linux server.
The quality of service was great but hiring an administrator for linux was dificult. I only found one in twenty guys who had mentioned linux in their resume and these guys were costly. Moreover they didnt want to work for Small Scale Industry. So, I decided not to put linux for small setups afterwards.”

It is definitely easier to find Java developers as compared to good Python or Php programmers.

3. Open Source Availability

On sourceforge.net, Java comes next to C/C++ if you count number of projects.
So it was safe decision to go with Java while starting tBits. And yes we were right in it.

Now tBits uses lots of open source libraries for Attachment Processing, Text Searching (Lucence), Database Pooling, Scheduling, Installer Prepiration. Building (ant), Spell Checking, Charting etc.

If we had paid for each of these, definitely the product cost must have been higher.

This would not have been possible in any other comparable language for free:)

4. Industry Acceptance

In tBits, the core mantra for flexibility had been:

• Provide Simple and Intuitive UI to configure the settings of a component
• Provide configuration file to configure a component
• Provide the API to be extended.

Authentication Mechanism, Rule Engine, Attachement Processor,  extended  fields are examples of extensible component in tBits.
So for tBits to be extended and used in industry it must support a well known programming language and choosing Java was a good bet.
I found this article intersting which tries to guess the Java acceptability by measuring the book sales: http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2005/06/the_rise_of_ope.html

5. Hardware and OS Independance
This is undoubtedly well known fact about Java.