Lamenting Java Complexity
So a recent email thread on the OCJUG mailing list about the book “Beyond Java” and it’s accompanying review about how Java is falling out of favor due to complexity and the ascendence of other languages like Python, Ruby, etc. While I like Java and it was a great leap forward for enterprise development, the enterprise ambitions of those steering the language have forgotten about other developers that want to solve simple problems with simple tools.
So here’s a recent real-life example of some of my frustrations with just trying to get something simple done in Java: base64 encoding across multiple languages
.NET ==> Convert.ToBase64String(byte[])
PHP ==> base64_encode()
Ruby ==> Base64.encode64()
Java ==> Not in core libraries
Google “Java base64″
Go through results
Find some SourceForge thingy
Is it GPL? Can I put GPL code in this? If no, find some other sample code
Cut/paste Base64 class into project
Change class packaging
There’s probably some Apache Commons support for Base64 (HttpConnection?) but I didn’t see it in the Google results and it seems like every time I want to attach some Apache JAR to a project it comes with 3-6 other JARs I have to have and they all have to be the right version.
Sigh…
