[Biojava-l] Java Resource Management [a semi troll...]

[Simon Brocklehurst]

Ewan Birney wrote:

Ewan,

The issues in that memo are real.  Are those *really* the reasons for 
your reluctance to move to Java?  Are you sure it's not more of a "not 
wanting to start all over again" kind of learning issue?

I remember very well when I switched from C to Java in 1997, it was 
pretty painful.   This was not so much the state of Java back then, but 
more of "how can I live without pointer arithmetic?", "how the hell do I 
convert a string to a float?" type of issues...

> 
> For guys who do run Java as part of their production code in
> bioinformatics, 
> 
> (a) do you have versioning problems over time?

Oh yes - there are many problems relating to different versions of Java 
(including the same dot release of VMs on different hardware/OS 
platforms)!   However, we've never *not* been able to find a solution to 
these when they hit, and they're not usually too expensive to deal with 
either.  We have production systems running today that use code-bases 
that are five years old.

> (b) are there resource problems or not?
>

There's not a single answer to this - depends on the type of system. 
Currently there are no significant resource issues us. RAM resource 
problems for GUI systems running on the desktop went away (in the main) 
four or five years ago. At that time, typical desktop only had 32 MB 
RAM.  On the server, resource problems have never been a amjor issue for 
us.  In general, you certainly don't need "really beefy" machines to run 
Java systems on.

So, the bottom line is - Java isn't even close to being perfect.  But 
then neither are: C/C++; Perl; Python; .NET; any other programming 
language/platform.

Taking everything into account right now, Java is probably the best 
platform for efficient development of high performance, rock-solid 
computer systems with complex architectures?

That's not to say that it's *easy* to build systems like this in Java - 
it's not - it's hard. It's just that it's much, much easier in Java than 
anything else. Hence, most of the planet uses Java to build such systems.

Simon
-- 
Dr Simon M. Brocklehurst, Ph.D.
Director of Informatics & Robotics

Cambridge Antibody Technology
Milstein Building
Granta Park
Cambridge
CB1 6GH
UK

Telephone: + 44 (0) 1763 263233
Facsimile + 44 (0) 1763 263413
Email: mailto:simon.brocklehurst at cambridgeantibody.com
http://www.cambridgeantibody.com

Cambridge Antibody Technology Limited *
Registered Office: The Science Park, Melbourn, Cambridgeshire,
SG8 6JJ, UK. Registered in England and Wales number 2451177
(* Cambridge Antibody Technology Limited is a member of the
Cambridge Antibody Technology Group of Companies)

Confidentiality Note: This information and any attachments is
confidential and only for use by the individual or entity to
whom it has been sent. Any unauthorised dissemination,
distribution or copying of this message is strictly prohibited.
If you are not the intended recipient please inform the sender
immediately by reply e-mail and delete this message from your system.
Thank you for your co-operation.