A Curious Animal

On this post I try to summarize, from my personal point of view and experience, the reason I like Java on the server side. The point of view isn't from the developer side but from a system administrator role.

Consider too, the intention of this post isn't to create a flame war among Java, PHP, ASP or any other technology. Simply is a list of pros about Java on the server side and, to be fair, I think some day I would need to write a list of cons.

Java is easy to install

Usually I work on Linux servers. The steps a follow to install Java are:

• Download the SDK or JRE bundle.
• Uncompress in the /opt directoy.
• Create a simlink like /opt/java pointing to the uncompressed Java folder.

Easy to upgrade

In the same way you can update your Java version downloading the new JDK or JRE package, uncrompressing it and updating the previous simlink.

Several servers to choose

There are several servers, many of them open source, to choose. You can choose a "lightweight" server like Tomcat or Jetty or a more "heavyweight" one like GlassFish or JBoss.

I'm refering to lightweight or heavyweight depending on the JEE implementation level. Tomcat isn't implements the whole specification those a say it is lightweith.

Avoid the hell of package dependencies

I think this is the main reason I wrote this post. When you work with PHP, you need some version of PHP to be installed on your system, an Apache server with PHP (and probably some database support) compiled, and a bunch of libraries and PHP wrappers, like: GD, ImageMagick, or any other library.

All these must be installed and maintained. With Java on the server side, the applications deployed on to the server are responsible to contained all the need JAR files with: graphics, maths, image manipulation, etc. Optionally, and if many of the deployed applications uses the same libraries you can choose to installed the required JAR on a "shared" directory in the server.

Lots of applications

You have wikis (XWiki), portal systems (Liferay), content management (Alfresco or JLibrary) and any other kind of application you need.

Consideration

As I mention at the beginning this is a simply list enumerations of pros about Java at server side. Please if you have in mind any others (or any cons) please put as a comment.

Also, if you prefer PHP (or other technology) at server side, please enumerate its pros/cons.