Expedia ... migrating from C# ASP.Net to Java

Posted By: Sabot | Jul 14th @ 11:39 AM
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Comments: 18 | Views: 1346
#Jul 14th @ 11:39 AM
Sabot
Sabot
My name is Dave Oliver. I'm a Technical Architect.

http://www.linkedin.com/jobs?viewJob=&jobId=693074

Expedia was started by Microsoft many years ago and now it looks like they are moving away from Microsoft technologies.

All I can say is, why would they move from order to chaos? Haven't they been watching the last year or so?

The thing is Java is growing too much in too many areas with no one putting in standards. Many people have already started to complain about the number of features (and idioms) in the language itself, probably the next version will bring in a whole bloat more. 

Just take a look at the Java Community Process to get an idea of what is Java today. To me the problem is not the number of technologies or the number of specifications. Nor the fact that Java tries to compete in every possible market niche. I don't mind. The problem is the integration between them! Specially when you group them together and call it a 'platform'.

How can something like JSF be promoted to be the standard? A component framework that lacks even one interesting component! That relies on third party libraries (many OSS) that are, of course, incompatible between them. Each one with a different AJAX approach (as the specification says nothing on the topic). And, worst of all, incompatible with JSP/JSTL and portlet development.

So, if even the Spring people can't get WebFlow to work properly in a JSF + Portlet environment how are we supposed to do so?

I call this a mess!

... and Expedia want to move into this world? I wish them luck because I'm keen to go the other way!

#Jul 14th @ 11:45 AM
intelman
intelman

Perhaps Microsoft ticked them off, and they want to switch just to spite them? Or there is some functionality gain or costs savings involved? There could be no other possibility.

Microsoft technologies may be orderly, but licensing is so annoying. Buying, managaging, tracking... etc. That is the only reason to move away.

#Jul 14th @ 11:56 AM
vesuvius
vesuvius
Das Glasperlenspiel

If they have someone with 1/2 your skills, and they prefer Java, they extoll it to the board, and "lo and behold", Expedia move to Java. It's just a question of the proclivity of the Architect, and those rare cases where misjudgments are made of course!

#Jul 14th @ 12:28 PM
W3bbo
W3bbo
The Master of Baiters

Maybe they're looking to port code away from Java? Isn't that a reason to hire Java developers?

#Jul 14th @ 12:31 PM
spivonious
spivonious

From the job desc: "Contribute to the migration from ASP.NET C# technology to Java"

#Jul 14th @ 10:34 PM
Sabot
Sabot
My name is Dave Oliver. I'm a Technical Architect.

'Proclivity' is letting the Architects off lightly! It's actually called bias driven by peers or politics but rarely looking at business requirement or TCO. It really annoys me when fellow Architects are totally prepared to put their company at risk because they 'prefer' a technology and that preference has no basis in what is happening in the organisation.

Architects have to be objective and unbias. Everyone else can pick a favourite and specialise, Architects can't.

#Jul 14th @ 11:35 PM
blowdart
blowdart
Peek-a-boo

You're assuming they haven't analysed the migration, and that they don't have good Java architectures and processes. Heck the Java patterns community is far more mature than the .NET ones, and they've had the bits to support Agile and CI in place for longer as well.

In fact your comment about moving from order to chaos shows your unobjectiveness and bias. Other companies have been using Java sucessfully for years - maybe your experiences are bad ones and not representative of Java as a whole.

#Jul 15th @ 1:25 AM
W3bbo
W3bbo
The Master of Baiters

But Java and C#/CLR are very similar, why can't you share processes and patterns between the platforms?

#Jul 15th @ 1:57 AM
blowdart
blowdart
Peek-a-boo

The communities are different. Java has had patterns and processes for longer - more Java devs use them and understand them, which in turn means that it's easier to find Java developers that produce decent code. Same with the toolsets - look at nAnt, nUnit, nDoc, log4Net, nHibernate etc, all ports from the Java versions. It's arguably a more mature platform, with a more engrained sense of P&P

#Jul 15th @ 9:27 AM
Ray7
Ray7

Well there are actually a number of good reasons that they could  migrating, but I suspect the main one is cost. They can set up Linux servers and have access to a greater number of third party frameworks (most of which are free) which will allow them to build stuff a lot more cheaply.

The skills need to develop in Java and .NET are broadly similar, and the Jave IDEs are better (I'm talking about IntelliJ, not Eclipse).

 

Looking at the posting, it looks as if they're interested in presentation layer stuff and since .NET has only just got an MVC framework, this leaves Java light years ahead.

 

I take your point about JSF though; it's a pain to use, but that's because people tend to use it for the wrong thing. The idea behind it was to build a framework from which developers could build higher level frameworks (such as Seam). If you're building an app with JSF and you're not using Facelets or Shale with it, then you're doing it wrong.

 

But the real reason that JSF hasn't really taken off is because there are many frameworks that are much better.

Tapestry

Rife

Grails

Wicket

 

Tapestry and Wicket are especially good since they've completely divorced the presentation template from the backend code. No odd bits of Java stuck in your HTML template for your design department to run roughshod over when they add a stylesheet.  The ASP.NET MVC is about six years behind both these frameworks.

 

C# is a better language than Java, but not so good that many companies are ready to stay on the MS license train when cash is tight.

Bear in mind that the JVM is also being changed to make it easier for it to support other languages such as Scala.

 

 

 

#Jul 15th @ 10:35 AM
aL_
aL_
Rx ftw

its typical middle management scapegoting. the system as it is sucks, so they blame the platform. the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence Smiley

maybe the rewritten system will be an imrovment, but it wont be because of the platform switch..

#Jul 15th @ 7:06 PM
magicalclick
magicalclick

That many be true. But, system migration is really a long road. I thought it would be something bigger. Something that really pissed them off in order for them to switch.

 

Anyway, maybe...

1) Cost.

2) Current system sucked.

3) New CIO have good relationship with Java vendor.

4) MS did something to them.

 

I am certainly interest to know what's going on.

#Jul 15th @ 9:18 PM
Ray7
Ray7

That's quite a few assumptions you're making there.

 

Given that Expedia is one of the most widely used holiday info/booking sites, then I'd be surprised if they'd make such a move without a cost/technical reason.

 

#Oct 10th @ 10:57 PM
SteveXYZ
SteveXYZ

Perhaps they want to move to hardware other than Intel?  Can't really do that with .Net unless you use VM ware ( thus adding another layer to the pot).

 

As for standards. J2EE is the standard.  Use other frameworks if they work for you, if not, use the standard.

#Oct 10th @ 11:02 PM
PaoloM
PaoloM
Hypermediocrity

Is there any competitive hardware out other than Intel?

#Oct 11th @ 1:54 PM
blowdart
blowdart
Peek-a-boo

Yea J2EE is the standard ... for Java

 

*rolling eyes*

#Oct 11th @ 4:04 PM
W3bbo
W3bbo
The Master of Baiters

I think he means Sun's J2EE is the de-facto standard implementation of Java for these kinds of Enterprise-y systems; I wonder how many people use non-Sun Java implementations (besides MSJVM/J++) given that Sun's Java is available for Linux, but Mono is the only CLR implementation on non-Windows platforms.

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