Winners
1. Spring Framework
Spring continues its solid growth and is essentially becoming the de-facto single gravitating force in the Java space, especially in the enterprise. The funding they now get plus their firming partnerships with BEA, IBM and even Oracle. Even Sun Java EE 6 may have a Spring flavor to it. BEA fighting off Oracle may be a sign of a pending strategy by BEA: possibly acquiring Spring. In the end, I think IBM will end up landing Spring though.
2. JRuby/Rails AND Groovy/Grails
The JRuby interpreter allows Java and Ruby to co-mingle. This gives Java developers a more seamless way to access and use the Ruby on Rails or Rails Web Framework, arguably the world’s most popular open source Web framework as part of their stack solution in the enterprise. The Rails installbase and ease of use will prove to be a pressure point of significant challange to Grails (“Groovy on Rails”) Framework. While JRuby on Rails and Grails have differing strengths that appeal to most developers, I suspect eventually one will be favored over the other in the long-term. Grails 1.0 plug-in oriented framework is new now, though. So, we’ll see.
3. Apache Struts2
Struts + WebWork = Struts2 API and framework for Java Web development. Struts was the open source Java framework that started it all. While JSF has continued to apply pressure and grow, Struts arguably is still the leading Web framework in Java given its now “wired-in” or legacy installbase. I suspect that large legacy will prefer to migrate to Struts2 rather than something totally new or perceived as such with JSF.
4. NetBeans
In a look at indeed.com job trends and other relative growth trends, NetBeans is currently the fastest growing open source Java IDE relative to Eclipse, IntelliJ, etc. While Eclipse still owns the most marketshare, that marketshare is being eroded by NetBeans. And ironically, a NetBeans Java IDE has right now arguably the best (J)Ruby on Rails IDE. RadRails downloads have crashed, etc. Developers I know believe that NetBeans is the simplest IDE to set up, configure and use from the get go, hands down over the “bloated” Eclipse IDE and framework.
5. Google Guice
This micro “Spring”-like framework from Google is quite nascent but noteworthy and something to watch, given Google and other suitors involved. Could this be the next Spring if Guice was combined with Google Web Toolkit (GWT), Gears, and other projects/sub-projects from code.google.com? Time will tell.
What did I miss? What are your top five Java technology winners in 2007?
Dec 26, 12:33 am
I highly disagree with the statement that RoR is “arguably the world’s most popular open source Web framework” – It is indeed the most hyped one. If we want to measure by popularity then as far as I know PHP is much more popular. I think that Sun decided to invest in Ruby because of the big RoR hype in the past couple of years. I think that there is a more suitable dynamic language that had one of the first dynamic language JVM implementation and a very dedicated community. It is used a lot throughout the industry for example, Google uses it a lot (and it is even used inside Sun).This language arrives with a lot of useful built-in libraries and there are a lot of other open source libraries and frameworks to choose from. It is used to build big web sites such as YouTube and it is also used a lot by system adminitrators that want an easy and productive way to create scripts. You probably guessed by now that I am talking about the Python programming language.
Although very different from Java I find Python is in tune with the Java culture :
1. Readability and explicitness – both Java and Python endorse clean readable code that explicitly states what is being done.
2. Matureness- Python and Java are of almost the same age. They are mature languages that proved themselves again and again in production systems.
3. Vibrant community – both platforms have a devoted community and community process.
4. Open source libraries – both platforms have a lot of libraries and frameworks available (a result of points 2 and 3).
As a Java developer using a lot of Python/Jython nowadays, I am disappointed that Sun chose not to invest in supporting this popular and productive programming language. I think that Sun is missing an opportiunity to hook up with this wonderful community.