| I've used java since 1995. I agree that some EE projects are overly-complicated (EJB, etc.) and make simple tasks seem difficult. ...However, there's usually a reason - and, the bottom line is that you probably don't need to use those projects anyway. However, when u write a non-trivial app (more than a web front-end or REST API), java starts to shine: there are soooooo many open source projects available with friendly commercial licensing, good tools for debugging, etc.etc., that you save a lot of time by just incorporating things rather than writing things. This is not to say other languages don't provide these features - rails has some nice momentum (growing list of projects), python too, and say what u will about msft, c#/asp.net is a good combo (VS.NET is a great dev environment, and there is a relatively small but growing open-source movement - and Mono is fantastic for cross-platform work). ...but i'd say that the massive amount of effort and open source projects in java have been a godsend for my work - especially recently - and saved me enormous amounts of time. ...also, I've found that recent groovy and grails versions have made web dev super simple...and u can call all your java code ease. (And groovy++ (statically typed groovy extension) makes groovy performance for a lot of thing as fast as java.) But the bottom line is that u should choose what u r most comfortable with. Java would be a fine choice. Especially java / groovy / grails...and ignore the java projects u don't need (EJB, etc.). On another note, I think the one language that startups should avoid (again for more than a simple web app talking directly to a DB) is PHP. Just try to extend it...or talk to an external service. yes, you can wrap your services with REST APIs...or use something like thrift...and i know there are several successful companies that use it (facebook, etc.etc.) - and i've been part of companies that use it too...but i think PHP puts yourself in handcuffs that a startup shouldn't really need. ...and it creates a "silo" around web development - not a good way to get going. my $0.02. ;-) |