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Ask HN: Java FUD

2 pointsswah11 comments

I want to use Jersey (JAX-RS) to write a web app in the static files+AJAX fashion. I also want to use Java because otherwise I can always keep blaming tools and documentation for things not working out.

So I go over to Java land, and the feeling is that I need to, to get things running, get to know about Tomcat, Hibernate, Maven and JBoss just to get started.

Now, having used Python+Django, I use to favor simpler solutions over complex ones.

What do you advise me to do? Is this just FUD? Should I try a non-EE Java solution (Lightweight java?), or just embrace the 3-letter acronyms?

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Use Grails - http://grails.org.

You will need to know Java/Groovy. Groovy can be considered a superset of Java (not 100% technically true, but easy enough to think of that way to get started).

> grails run-app

will run grails in dev mode on its own tomcat.

> grails prod run-app

will run grails in production mode on its own tomcat.

You can proxy Apache on port 80 to the tomcat port (default 8080).

Grails uses Hibernate under the hood, but hides it pretty darn well - you generally won't need to know much about it, or even touch any XML config files - to get started.

You can slowly add more Java libraries as required.

http://www.grails.org/plugin/jaxrs - this is a JAX-RS plugin for Grails which lets you use Jersey as the implementation if you want to ("At the moment, plugin users may choose between Jersey and Restlet as JAX-RS implementations").

The "Play!" framework might be interesting to you too, if you already know some Java, but I prefer Grails overall.

I second that Grails advice. Jersey, Hibernate and Maven isn't that bad, but Grails beats that anyday if you don't mind Groovy. While Play framework is cool too if you want to stick with Java, but it is not as mature as Grails or any other Java frameworks.

I was going to go in to a bit more detail, and this might be the place.

All your own code in Grails can be 'plain Java' if you want (or pretty darn close to it). The nice thing is the Java people who want to stick with Java can do that in Grails, or you can go pretty deep in to Groovy if you want.

Grails uses Maven and Hibernate, but you don't need to become masters in them before you start being productive.

This is why I like Grails so much - I've been able to be productive from a very early stage. The more I learn about the under the hood tools, the more productive I become, but I didn't need to understand or configure Hibernate, Sitemesh, Maven or Tomcat to get going. Now that I know more about them, it's even better, but it's great to jump in and have a working app early on (even if it's pretty basic).

Perhaps others learn differently, but Grails has been a great 'on ramp' to Java for me.

Well if you are going to jump out of Java then Scala should be a consideration as well. Even the Groovy creator commented that had Scala existed he would probably not have created Groovy. Wit Scala you can still use JAX-RS.

http://www.yes-no-cancel.co.uk/2009/05/13/building-go-test-i...

Well Scala existed at that time (2003), but that's not what he'd said. If someone had showed him a 2008 book on Scala in 2003, he'd have not created Groovy.

All that said, Strachan isn't really involved in Groovy and hasn't been for many years, so I'm not sure his views on the language or its appropriateness is of that much concern. A whole new team of people have been running with Groovy for years, and continue to make it better and more useful to people.

Scala is different enough from Java that syntactically that it's a hard sell for many. Groovy is far more Java-ish for Java devs to pick up, and as such I think it will continue to have a growing userbase for the foreseeable future (but I'm biased, as I run groovymag.com!)

Yeah, after re-reading my comment it comes off a lot more rude than was my intention. The point was to say that Scala is a really nice modernized "Java" (I know it is not but for simplicity, that is what I am going to call it) and that even the creator of Groovy thinks it has one of the most elegant designs out of the pack of Java replacements.

NP - I didn't take it as rude. Just wrong ;)

I don't see how recommending looking at Scala can be factually right or wrong, your bias may be influencing your bering there. The elegance of a language is subjective. The fact that Grooves founder finds it elegant lends credence to the fact that it is a popular opinion. Still no more right or wrong.

The ;) is a wink - was meant to indicate to take it lightheartedly (aka a joke).

Hey Hugo,

I've somehow become a bit of a devil's advocate for Java lately. Thanks for pinging me - happy to offer a few thoughts.

I've not actually tried using Jersey/JAX, but it looks like a very clean setup for quickly writing low-latency JSON APIs. I'm impressed by the Getting Started example (here: https://jersey.dev.java.net/use/getting-started.html) and find the use of decorators to specify path, methods, and content types creative.

As for the rest, keep in mind that you don't have to use anything that you don't want to. I've done a fair amount of Java development and never actually used Hibernate, Maven, or JBoss. For the most part, the complexity that these tools can introduce, while great for many projects, kind of scares the crap out of me. Like you, I'd always go for the simplest workable solution available.

Jetty is a very nice, simple alternative to Tomcat/JBoss, though I find Tomcat to be rather nice myself. One thing I've come to love about Java deployment is that you're literally deploying just one file (a .jar or .war) rather than hundreds.

If you're looking for a nice, clean ORM, check out ActiveObjects by @djspiewak. Its design is based on the active record pattern, and it's very easy to get up and running with about any database as a backend. I used this on a large project ending a few months ago and had a great experience with it. Daniel's also available via Twitter and IRC and tends to be happy to offer an answer to a quick, informed question. Here's the post he introduced it with (http://www.codecommit.com/blog/java/an-easier-java-orm), and here's the project page. (https://activeobjects.dev.java.net/). I'd also strongly recommend checking out these docs he put together: https://activeobjects.dev.java.net/ActiveObjects.pdf

I really love the "static files + AJAX" approach that you've suggested (it's actually the same one mentioned in the project I referred to above). If you were to build something with Jersey and ActiveObjects, perhaps with a small caching layer in between (either an in-app cache if you'll only have one app server, or memcached), you will have produced a screaming API for your application.

The Play framework (mentioned below) is also very good, and has emerging support for Scala, which I and many others find to be much cleaner and more expressive than the equivalent Java. If you're feeling adventurous, I whipped together a quick little framework for building zippy JSON APIs and simple frontends via a lightweight wrapper around the servlet API. It's called Miso. Here's the info on that (and do ping me if you feel like playing with this - I may have a more recent version): [http://blog.paradoxica.net/post/401365886/hello-miso]. See here for docs, and especially page 6, which shows what a sample controller / API endpoint looks like: http://u.phoreo.com/gx.pdf

Of course, this also depends on whether you actually need that, and how much experience (or desire to learn) you have. If you're comfortable with Python, something like Flask or Piston might be more appropriate. At the same time, I would suggest that those who say that '"x language" or "y framework" makes developers infinitely more productive' aren't offering terribly productive advice, as I find myself about equally productive in Java, Scala, Python, and Ruby, and often opt for Scala or Java unless I'm hammering out something quick and imprecise. That is to say, it's definitely a matter of preference. So, choose what you think will make you most productive, or, choose to learn something new which might be a bit difficult at first, but will also teach you a lot about statically-typed languages and could potentially meet the needs of your application with far fewer resources and lower latency on the server-side for years to come.

Regardless of which path you choose, feel free to hit me up with any questions along the way.

I've not actually tried using Jersey/JAX, but it looks like a very clean setup for quickly writing low-latency JSON APIs.

I was a very early adopter of Jersey and JAX-RS and I have to say, it is one of the first API's that I have seen come out of Java that provides the rapid development and prototyping typical of Ruby or Python. If future Java API's take their queue from JAX-RS then Java will again become competitive. I trained a guy just last week on JAX-RS and had him up and running in less that a day. Only truly elegant designs can provide that level of simplicity while exposing the ability to accomplish the task you want without having to make compromises. JAX-RS is a gem in the Java world and I hope that future Java API's will follow suite.

As well Netbeans tooling for JAX-RS goes a long way to reduce development time. You can write a JPA annotated class and Netbeans will gen the schema as well as the REST service. Or you can write the schema and Netbeans will gen the JPA class and the service. While I am generally not a fan of reliance on tooling this is a case where it helps without pooping all over your code.

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