Posted by Erwin Moller on 07/31/06 15:43

Luca wrote:

> I am not a programmer but I do work in the ICT sector.
>
> I read somewhere that J2EE would be "dying" and that PHP would be
> taking its place soon...
> Is this complete crap or does it have some real base ?

Hi Luca,

Difficult question.
I did J2EE for a few years but quited with it about 3-4 years ago.
In favor of PHP.

But J2EE and PHP are really 2 different beasts.
In very general words: J2EE is a lot more complex (from an users point of
view) and a lot harder to master than PHP.

Once you get confortable with PHP you can develop very fast: all functions
are build in PHP, and extending the language is relative easy (PEAR/PECL).

What I didn't like in J2EE was the fact I needed to browse through many
pages documentation all the time to get the job done. The number of classes
you need to master is huge.

Pro-J2EE: Once you know the basics (take a half year study/practice time
off), you just can do more than with PHP.
For example: It is easy to let JSP-pages communicate with each other. In PHP
you'll need sessions or database, while J2EE can share (references to)
objects that are in-process/memory.

I do miss a few possibilities I had in J2EE in PHP, but in general I am
happy I made the switch. PHP is language (for me) that I can fold the way I
think. That is something every proprammer likes. In Java I often had the
feeling I needed to do a lot of hard difficult work to get simple things
done.

To put it otherwise: Java/J2EE has a very steep learningcurve, where
everybody can get started with PHP, and get things done fast.

I don't know if J2EE will die, last year a few headhunters tried to get me
back into J2EE (which I refused, alltough it pays well).
That means that (at least in Europe) not enough people have J2EE skills
these days.

If someone asks me which language they should learn, I always advise PHP
because it is so easy to start with that most people will get motivated
fast, which is important. If you start with programming, and you start with
Java, chances are bigger that you'll quit with a frustrated feeling.


just my 2 cent.

Regards,
Erwin Moller

>
> Regards

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