I got confirmation that my session at JavaOne has been accepted.
While Java EE (formerly known as J2EE) has some powerful high-end features it is in most cases too complex and heavy for running modern Web applications. Although I've been preaching this for years it seems that only in the past couple of years has the mainstream of the industry and Enterprise customers woken up and understood this to be the case.
It is therefore no surprise that the Java community has finally gathered huge interest in dynamic languages as is apparent from observing the Java One web page. In fact, in the list of bullets describing the conference's topics scripting is second; to quote "Scripting in PHP, JavaScript, Ruby, Python and more".
While Java's market share in the Web application space has definitely softened and conceded to the likes of PHP and .NET, I think Java is far from going away. While I think the dynamics in Web development call for faster time-to-market and flexibility which languages such as PHP deliver, there are still plenty of applications where Java does well including cross-platform thick client applications ala Eclipse and in back-end Enterprise integration infrastructure projects.
It's good to see such an emphasis of dynamic languages at JavaOne. Java and dynamic languages are not an either or proposition. On the contrary, many Java developers use one or even two additional languages.
In my session at JavaOne titled "PHP and Java Technology Integration" I will be talking about how PHP applications can interoperate and leverage existing Java EE investments. PHP and Java can definitely co-exist and in fact in many cases are extremely complementary. PHP can provide the agility which Web development requires, whereas existing Java assets can be accessed, leveraged and expanded in favor of such applications.
If you're already doing PHP & Java integration or are interested in this topic, drop by my session.
