SCWCD Certification

[Anselm Paulinus]

Howdy Marty:
While going through your website some time ago, I stumbled on some of your public lectures. I realized you adviced your audience to take the SCWCD exams; What in your opinion is the worth of this exam?
What in your opinion do you think is the place of Jave(Servlets and JSP) in a couple of years judging from all microsoft is doing right now with .NET in order to undo Java technology, some articles are already pointing at the whole lot of advantages that comes with programming woth C#; one of those examples they claim is caching which could be done with just a line of code with C#, unlike Java which demands God knows how many line of code to accomplish the same task. It seems to me Microsoft never go to war with anybody and loose.
Finally are you writing or hope to write as well as deliver lectures on EJB and related tchnology.
Thanks
anselm.

[Anselm Paulinus]

Where is Marty? Is he gone?

[Marty Hall]

While going through your website some time ago, I stumbled on some of your public lectures. I realized you adviced your audience to take the SCWCD exams; What in your opinion is the worth of this exam?

I most definitely did not advise my students or readers to take the SCWCD exam. Rather, I provided review/study information for those who were already planning on taking it.
As to what I think of the worth of the exam, there are two questions one can ask when evaluating it:

What does certification really prove? Answer: very little (IMHO, of course). Like the programmer exam, I believe it tests knowledge of low-level details and the ability to memorize facts, but does very little to differentiate good developers from poor ones. However, asking what the exam really proves is not the important question to ask.

What do clients, bosses, human resources departments, and potential employers think that it proves? If they think that it proves something, then having the certification is helpful to your career regardless of the fact that (IMHO!) it doesn't really show much of anything. I do not know what percentage of these groups think that SCWCD (or Java programmer) certification means something; you'll have to evaluate this for yourself.

Cheers-
- Marty
[ November 13, 2003: Message edited by: Marty Hall ]

[Marty Hall]

What in your opinion do you think is the place of Java (Servlets and JSP) in a couple of years judging from all microsoft is doing right now with .NET in order to undo Java technology, some articles are already pointing at the whole lot of advantages that comes with programming woth C#; one of those examples they claim is caching which could be done with just a line of code with C#, unlike Java which demands God knows how many line of code to accomplish the same task. It seems to me Microsoft never go to war with anybody and loose.

Well, I hope the JavaRanchers don't round up a posse and run me out of town for saying so, but IMHO ASP.NET is excellent technology. I am no expert on it, but I did spend a few days at Microsoft HQ (paid for by Microsoft, no less!) learning about it. From a technical perspective, my opinion is that it is about as good as servlets/JSP. Similarly, my opinion of C# as a language is that it is about as good as Java as a language (sacrilege, I know -- sorry). There are technical features on both sides that people can argue are big advantages, but on the whole, my personal opinion is that JSP/servlets/J2EE and ASP.NET are roughly equal technically.
So, to me, the main distinguishing factor is that servlets/JSP run on Windows, Linux, Solaris, MacOS, etc. with Apache Tomcat, Macromedia JRun, Caucho Resin, New Atlanta ServletExec, IBM WebSphere, BEA WebLogic, Oracle 9i AS and a host of others. ASP.NET, in contrast, runs on Windows NT with IIS, Windows 2000 with IIS, and Windows XP with IIS. Even though the .NET core may run on some Unix platforms, my understanding is that no commercially viable version of ASP.NET will run on non-Windows platforms for a long time to come.
It is hard to predict the future, but my guess is that JSP/servlets/J2EE will continue to have the biggest share of medium/large Web application projects, and .NET will continue to have the second biggest share. In the last year, I have done training courses for several organizations that were shifting all of their development from ASP/ASP.NET to Java. Of course, organizations that do the reverse would not call me in, but it certainly does not seem to me that JSP/servlet development is dying off in any way.
Cheers-
- Marty

[Giselle Dazzi]

Thanks for being honest.

[Mishra Anshu]

Really Nice and honest explanation.
Thanks Marty

[Ko Ko Naing]

Originally posted by Marty Hall:

It is hard to predict the future, but my guess is that JSP/servlets/J2EE will continue to have the biggest share of medium/large Web application projects, and .NET will continue to have the second biggest share.

Marty, do you mean it only for medium/large Web application projects? In my opinion, I guess for small web applications... ASP.Net always beat J2EE in my currently residing country, Thailand... Maybe this is the reason why J2EE is so-called Enterprise Edition...
Because I.T. people usually started to develop in Windows platform, they know IIS before Tomcat, WebLogic or WebSphere, including me... I also felt at that time that development, deployment and maintenence in IIS is a lot easier than in J2EE-based servers...
But for now, I found the real treasure in J2EE two years ago and I am now living in the world of Java...

[Anselm Paulinus]

Originally posted by Ko Ko Naing:
[QB]
Marty, do you mean it only for medium/large Web application projects? In my opinion, I guess for small web applications... ASP.Net always beat J2EE in my currently residing country, Thailand... Maybe this is the reason why J2EE is so-called Enterprise Edition...

He stated it clearly that this applies to medium/large web applicatio projects. There is no gainsaying the fact that for small projects Microdoft products have an upper hand for obvious reasons.
However I want to thank Marty for his candid opinion on this issue, though I strongly believe that Microsoft .Net will come around to blow the leading rug out of the feet of java; its just a matter of time.

[Marty Hall]

He stated it clearly that this applies to medium/large web application projects. There is no gainsaying the fact that for small projects Microdoft products have an upper hand for obvious reasons.

Perhaps. But another way of looking at it is that almost any technology is fine for the small apps: J2EE, ASP.NET, ColdFusion, PHP, CGI with Perl, etc.

However I want to thank Marty for his candid opinion on this issue, though I strongly believe that Microsoft .Net will come around to blow the leading rug out of the feet of java; its just a matter of time.

I am not as pessimistic as you are. .NET has been around for a while no, and although it has a fair sized market, it is hardly taking over from Java. My guess is that JSP/servlets/J2EE will continue to hold a slightly-larger market share for the foreseeable future. (Of course, "foreseeable" is not very long in the software/internet world ).
Cheers-
- Marty

[Unnsse Khan]

What you guys, have to understand is that its doesn't matter who wins... What the reality is that there will always be a competitor to the leading technology and people will have their own opinions...
Its just like the classic high school fist fight - who wins? Joe or Henry? Well, all of Henry's friends will say that Henry won and all of Joe's friends will say that Joe won.
The problem with J2EE -> application servers are too expensive (and lots of companies are trying to save their money on tech spending, this will not be a factor if the tech sector prospers again).
The problem with .NET -> RTTI & Distribution capability. (Java rocks in the distributed computing realm).
Now, the point I am trying to make is... Its all in the eyes of the beholder... Look at the 1980s & 1990s... M$ was winning but guess what?
Mac programmers were more highly paid than M$ programmers...
From a developers point of view, J2EE is here to stay, and it would be out right stupid for people to switch over to .NET because the only thing the industry cares about is what an individual is an expert of... No one wants a jack of all trades - master of none... And you have to understand all the Visual Basic programmers will switch to C# (cuz they are forced to) and we talking like 3 million people... So, if you want to switch, just realize that there's competition on both sides of the fence (and the people who have 5 years M$ development experience will stand out and be able to get jobs faster in .NET then the person with the computer science degree and both J2EE & .NET certifications). Just like the experienced Java people will have it easier sticking to their end of the playing field.
Right now, its the employer's market, so don't ruin it for yourself by switching technologies... What's best or whose going to win isn't important for the developer, its important only for the entreprenuer...
JavaRanch has lots of tech savvy people, I encourage them to share their opinions on this matter....