That's very true. There are numerous modules on CPAN which support such efforts. Having started to learn the Java pantheon in order to understand my guys' production, I would say that the programming model espoused in J2EE development takes an extreme view, where _everything_ is completely defined through enforcement of edict. The goal is to prevent anything ever from being a loose end. A laudable goal, but a royal pain in the @ss in the way of actually getting anything done.

It does have a benefit for organizations which prefer to have programmers be lowest common denominator interchangeable parts, because it raises the bar of what one can turn in at the end of a shift to at least be something which the compiler will accept. This reassures managers -- who usually are LCD interchangeable parts themselves (to the org, anyway) -- that progress is being made. It doesn't in any way ensure that the _logic_ is complete or correct, but it does expose that level for discussion, which is a good thing.

On the political/cultural/social front, I heartily agree with both of you, adrianh and dimar. Indeed, one of my reasons for letting my guys proceed was the marketing value of that little cup of coffee.

I have to admit that I allowed them to go ahead without really researching it in depth. As I do so now, I see some advantages to the systematic approach espoused / enforced by J2EE, but also lots of disadvantages in the daily execution. I especially see that it's even more critical to understand the layering of the tools you use and their effects on execution. Simply put, there are lots more of them. Java is only one piece, and even in just the core language you have to be aware of the execution costs of things like passing around copies of objects as opposed to references, sorting of fancy collections, etc. Add to that key extensions like Hibernate, Jakarta, and JBoss, and you have an entire system that can be an order of magnitude more complex than Embperl/Apache/MySQL. Is it better? Well, it sure ain't faster, but, yes, it will be more scalable. Our first generation had lots of custom programming to support the PHP/MySQL main site for database and state replication, so that our customers would not be barfed like SalesForce.com is doing as we speak. Such protective mechanisms are much more cleanly created in the new system (although I see many J2EE sites that still don't bother; oh, well. Painful Learning Experiences coming up!) and we will be able to serve more customers faster in the future.

Did we need to do all this? In our case, I think the answer is 'yes and no'. Certainly the scripted version is working very well to serve our present customers. Certainly, the Java version is taking longer to deploy than updating the scripted version would have. Our particular case is a specialized SaaS app that has customers who are nearly all Fortune 500-caliber, and they do depend on us to be up and running 24x7. I think there are very few other applications which do demand this level of service, though, and especially for smaller companies looking to break in, the scripted web service model is entirely adequate and much less costly. Just as we have built our reputation on a scripted system, I believe it is the best way for other businesses to start out and build their way to success. It is even more appropriate for those businesses for which web services are not their core product.

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