True that Java does poorly in the hosted space. I’m curious to investigate where it might be used for noncorporate web apps though. For instance, Zimbra is using Java to do their disconnected mode–I believe they picked it because it was an easy port from their regular mode–so they are probably using Java for database access on the server side.

It would also be interesting to learn about .NET being used for web app development beyond corporate intranet projects.

To resond to Anne’s query about C# features, I was thinking about new 2.0 features such as partial classes, generics, and nullable types. These are features of .NET, but C# implements them.

Also, related to the comment about .NET not getting off the ground, here’s my take: Microsoft shops are Microsoft shops through and through. I’ve worked in plenty of them. They often use Microsoft products without evaluating alternatives. Having said that, there are many “closeted” open source friendly .NET developers who are also familiar with Java. Many of these pre-.NET devs were itching for the features of Java, but many others were caught off guard. There’s still a contingent of VB6 devs who aren’t willing to let go of that language. I believe that many Microsoft shops will forego a technology while they wait for Microsoft to release their version than make the switch to a competing technology. In some instances devs and other technologists can convince management to evaluate alternatives, but a lot of times it’s like talking to a brick wall.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_developer

I think the term is very broad, but I’ve always considered myself a web developer even when I was doing just HTML, building animated gifs, or writing Perl CGIs. When I got started in 1994-5 most of the work was HTML, Photoshop and animated gifs. Then came Perl CGIs and javascript. Not long after I moved onto Java and JSP and even a brief stint doing PHP. After that I mostly covered java web development and then the last year or so I’ve been playing around with Ruby on Rails. I consider all of this to be web development.

My sense is that you’re talking about people who didn’t have a programming background, but found the barrier to entry to something like PHP or Coldfusion reasonable. And it possibly includes a lot of hobbyists who maintain sites in something like Drupal or Wordpress. For them the most important thing is that their hosting provider supports PHP and MySQL. Java does very poorly in the hosting space. For these ‘web developers’ anything in the Java world has little impact on them.

Do corporate IT developers count as web developers? It’s not what I think of when I think of web development. But you could call them that. They’re not what I was thinking of here.

My line of thought proceeded from the question “does open source Java matter to web developers?” From there, I began thinking about the people who are most likely to choose open source (especially free versions)–small dev projects taking place on the open web. Ruby is getting a lot of press and seems to be very popular, true. That would tend to make Java even less important in the areas I’m thinking about.

True, PHP and MySQL are not the only options. They’re just ones you will very likely run into if you’re thinking about building a web app. You may not choose them, but you’re unlikely to leave them out of your initial consideration, especially if you’re looking at using open source tools.

Thanks for your comment, Ed. I was hoping to get some alternate perspectives, and you provided a good one.

Maybe you don’t consider the millions of java developers ‘web developers’, but many of them would beg to differ.

And other options like Ruby on Rails are really taking off as well, so I’m confused by the only options for a web developer being PHP and MySQL.

Finally, I don’t think for the average java web develper that open sourcing is a big deal. It’s just another step in the road to open sourcing most software tools which is a real issue if you’re Oracle, Microsoft, SAP, etc.

As an open-source language, I think Java will do okay. The legions of enterprise developers who depend on it for building massive transactional database systems won’t turn their back on it. But it didn’t need to be open source for that, probably.

What language features does C# 2.0 offer that Java already had? That sounds like an interesting thing to look into… I was just reading an interview with Zimbra’s CEO where he was suggesting that .NET wouldn’t have ever gotten off the ground if Java had been open sourced four years ago.

For me, I do all my personal sites in ASP.NET now because it’s habit. It’s easier because I’m familiar with the toolset. I sometimes wonder whether ASP.NET is overkill. A lot of times I prototype without ASP.NET.

I don’t know about Java’s relevance as an open source platform. I know that many .NET folks have expected use of Java to decline now that C# 2.0 has most of the same language features.