The One Way

A friend of mine wrote in his blog that Java and Python share the design goal of having one way to do things. I mostly agree--I write a lot of Java and should know.

But then I got to thinking... how does that explain something like JSP? I mean come on! If you are interesting in using Java with your end goal being some kind of HTML, there are no fewer than three ways to go about it. And then, each of those three ways have at least two ways of being implemented (Struts, Spring anyone?).

Anyway, sure--there is one way to do it. One of the big problems with Java is that there are too FREEEEEKIN' many frameworks (proof).


And then there is Apache. I once experimented with a serialization library that took JavaBeans to XML and vice-versa. It took me 30 solid minutes to assemble the Apache Commons libraries it depended on. Honestly, why don't they just submit a JSR to have the Commons included in the SDK. It would make using just about any Apache/Jakarta library easier.


Whew. I'm glad I got that off my chest.