Reboot on the top 40k sites and my opinion on Java

One month has passed since we first broke the barrier of the top 50k sites and today I notice that we passed over the barrier of the 40k as seen on the screenshot.

Recently we have been passing with so many things at the same time that it even gets difficult to look at the web stats and see how our community is growing on a global level. Projects keep being published and released at a good rate, more than ever it becomes necessary to provide stable results and well tested tools. Unfortunately not everything happens the way I would like to see, but in overall we still maintain a positive attitude.

Lots of reactions against my preference for Java programming and how it impacts the tools being released such as reWIM.

To some extent I do understand their reaction, to many people Java equates as a bloated platform with bad support and plenty of nuisances to end-users.  More often than not, this is correct.

However, I see Java from another perspective.

I am not adopting heavy frameworks such as Hibernate, SEAM or JBoss that would require hundreds of RAM megabytes and several hours (days) of troubles just to run. We are not getting tied to any specific operative system, IDE or even CPU type. Furthermore, nowadays any end-user can install Java without pain on their machine regardless of their desktop/mobile brand (except on iPhones/iTablets because Java is forbidden there, not really Java's fault).

As always, I am investing my efforts in the future. Java is used because the work we share today will continue running tomorrow. I am not tying this coding effort to any specific user interface, we are allowing end-users and other developers to integrate our work from their web environment, from a normal desktop application or run directly from a command line.

I am opening the doors so that our work can run from a distributed platform. Has anyone ever noticed how well Java takes advantages of machines with several CPU cores? This kind of advantages are priceless.

This does not mean that I adopt Java as a solution for everything related to programming, it just means that I am very familiar and understand perfectly where this platform can help me.

Regardless of what anyone says badly about Java, just open your mind and you will be happily surprised.