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  1. JDJ's Readers Choice Awards posted (40 messages)

    JDJ has posted its annual "Reader's Choice" awards, which it bills as "The Oscars of the Software Industry." Notable winners include BEA's WebLogic, IDEA for best Java IDE, Websphere MQ for best messaging tool, and JProfiler for best Java profiling tool.

    Other winners include MagicDraw UML for "best database tool or driver," Toplink for "best Java persistence architecture," "Hibernate in Action" for "best Java book," and Sun's Standard Edition JVM for best JVM.

    Eclipse won multiple awards: Most innovative Java product, best Java application, best team development tool, and best Java debugging tool, with SWT winning "best Java class library" and Eclipse RCP winning "best rich client platform."

    The awards seem much more appropriate than in years past (meaning no disrespect to Altova, but XMLSpy is not likely to win "best database" for anyone in their right mind.) However, some inconsistencies still stand out: Hibernate didn't even place in the top four for best persistence architecture, even though "Hibernate in Action" won "best Java book." Further, Spring didn't show up in the awards at all, despite being responsible for a huge change in how Java applications and components are developed and tested.

    What do you think of the awards? Is Eclipse - a development tool - actually the "best Java product" that Java has to show? Is an award program that focuses on developer tools yet avoids packages that have altered how Java is developed and deployed something that can even be considered as valid?
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    Threaded Messages (40)

  2. Weird awards[ Go to top ]

    I think it's funny that "Hibernate in Action" gets the best book award but doesn't even show up in the list of the top persistence frameworks. Let's just forget that it's probably the most prevalent one out there.
    Reply to this Reply to original

  3. Weird awards[ Go to top ]

    I think it's funny that "Hibernate in Action" gets the best book award but doesn't even show up in the list of the top persistence frameworks. Let's just forget that it's probably the most prevalent one out there.

    So by that logic if "In Cold Blood" was voted the best real crime book, then you would expect that the murders of a family it describes must be the best real crime.
    Reply to this Reply to original

  4. Weird awards[ Go to top ]

    So by that logic if "In Cold Blood" was voted the best real crime book, then you would expect that the murders of a family it describes must be the best real crime.

    That's a stupid analogy.
    Reply to this Reply to original

  5. Weird awards[ Go to top ]

    So by that logic if "In Cold Blood" was voted the best real crime book, then you would expect that the murders of a family it describes must be the best real crime.
    That's a stupid analogy.

    Really? So tell me why when a book receives an award because it is well done somehow reflects on the quality of its subject? What is the logic in that? A book is good because it is well written and conveys its ideas clearly, not because of its topic. The analogy is apt.
    Reply to this Reply to original

  6. Unfair Awards[ Go to top ]

    Man you're a hopeless case!

    I haven't seen any awards more unfair than this...
    There are no names for industry giants like webMethods and BusinessObjects

    Childers: the term astrosurfer must have been coined for you.
    IT books are not novels, nobody in their sane mind would read "Hibern8 in Action" as general persistence concept building material or as a bit of light reading and use TopLink instead.

    [when u mess things up once, don't ever try to cover up by messing again :D]
    Reply to this Reply to original

  7. Unfair Awards[ Go to top ]

    Man you're a hopeless case!I haven't seen any awards more unfair than this...There are no names for industry giants like webMethods and BusinessObjectsChilders: the term astrosurfer must have been coined for you.IT books are not novels, nobody in their sane mind would read "Hibern8 in Action" as general persistence concept building material or as a bit of light reading and use TopLink instead.[when u mess things up once, don't ever try to cover up by messing again :D]

    If your were required to use Hibernate or TopLink and you were looking for a book to help you, you would judge the book by how well it did the job, not how well you liked TopLink or Hibernate.

    As to the rest of what you said, pathetic. I can only hope you grow up someday.
    Reply to this Reply to original

  8. Weird awards[ Go to top ]

    But IntelliJ IDEA won Best Java IDE
    Reply to this Reply to original

  9. I know[ Go to top ]

    I know that IDEA won the best IDE, but i think that the EClipse, JBuilder ..etc still live to compete with the IDEA thing. I believe the the new version of IDEA come with many new features but other IDE's also did the same.

    So, IMO IDEA is not the best!

    Ahmed Hashim
    Software Engineer
    Egypt
    Egypt JUG http://www.egjug.org
    Reply to this Reply to original

  10. Weird awards[ Go to top ]

    You think Hibernate is worthy of a nod because it's "prevalent"?
    Reply to this Reply to original

  11. Weird awards[ Go to top ]

    You think Hibernate is worthy of a nod because it's "prevalent"?
    No, Marc, I don't. But I do think Hibernate deserves a nod, at the very least, because if it were not, I wouldn't like it and use it, and the EJB3 spec committee wouldn't have taken so much input from the Hibernate team and example.

    I'm not surprised to see Hibernate not win. I am surprised that it wasn't in the top four, because from everything I've seen, both in private (commercial) applications and open source applications, Hibernate's in very wide use -- and if people didn't like it, that wouldn't be the case.
    Reply to this Reply to original

  12. Weird awards[ Go to top ]

    Yes but I believe people like it simply because they haven't used anything else. TopLink is far superior. It's major flaw is that it's not free. Of course I feel the same way about IntelliJ and Eclipse so feel free to think I'm biased.
    Reply to this Reply to original

  13. RE: Weird awards[ Go to top ]

    Marc,

    Thanks for the feedback, we've always worked hard to provide a quality product so it's always nice to see comments like this.

    We are about to address the "not free flaw" via a community edition of TopLink which is the EJB 3.0 Persistence reference implementation. It is completely free for development and deployment. It is available now via Glassfish.

    https://glassfish.dev.java.net/javaee5/persistence/entity-persistence-support.html

    We'll make more noise about this when we hit the milestone of full EJB 3.0 compliancy. The specification is still undergoing some minor revisions so as a result the RI is not quite done yet. The Community Edition is the same exact core persistence engine as the TopLink product. Our goal is to provide a commercial-quality reference implementation that will meet the majority of ORM requirements.

    Doug Clarke
    Product Manager, Oracle TopLink
    Reply to this Reply to original

  14. Weird choices in many areas[ Go to top ]

    Congratulations to the winners.

    From complete application development frameworks to books, 17,000 readers voted for the good, the bad, and the ugly. Some of the choices smell of being the fair and balanced Java equivalents to Fox News.

    The list seems overpopulated by application development tools in some categories, such as "Best Java Application". Was this on purpose? Do the JDJ editors know of any Java applications outside the tools arena? The nomination of something like Azureus or Aqua Data Studio might have been interesting and challenging. Is the almost complete absence of open-source products a reflection of the market, or of the nominees ability to pay for advertising in the publication?

    The same could be said about the selection of the best JVM, and other choices. Either the choices offered to the readers were too limited, the 17,000 readers don't include any of the open-source developers in the world, or the Java universe is in worst shape than most of us are led to believe.

    Cheers,

    E
    Reply to this Reply to original

  15. Weird choices in many areas[ Go to top ]

    Some of the choices smell of being the fair and balanced Java equivalents to Fox News.

    Is Murdoch behind JDJ as well?
    Reply to this Reply to original

  16. Weird choices in many areas[ Go to top ]

    Some of the choices smell of being the fair and balanced Java equivalents to Fox News.

    I found some humor in it too.

    On the other hand, it's a voluntary vote -- a web poll. SYS-CON organized it much better this year (remember the mysteriously declining votes the other year?). Also, it does draw attention to the industry, so it does have its benefits.

    The XML Spy thing the other year will go down in history, though ..

    Peace,

    Cameron Purdy
    Tangosol Coherence: The Java Data Grid
    Reply to this Reply to original

  17. JDJ's Readers Choice Awards posted[ Go to top ]

    Well, in all honesty, polls like this are really hard. The biggest problems I have are:

    • Sample size. JDJ had 17000 voters... which seems awfully small for their proclaimed readership size, especially across their entire publication lineup.
    • Product qualification. In the past, there was fairly little vetting of products in various categories (see "XMLSpy" as the winner of best database tool, which is unfortunate - XMLSpy is a good product, but it isn't a database tool and doesn't honestly deserve the ridicule that the award garners it.) Sadly, the award process doesn't seem to be open enough to suggestions for things that aren't nominated - see Hibernate and Spring for examples. Chances are that everyone figured that both of those had already been nominated, and as a result, they weren't nominated.
    • Astroturfing potential. Hopefully JDJ is trying to eliminate voters who are astroturfing... but somehow, I doubt it, because of the winners. Look at TopLink, which is an entirely deserving product for "best persistence architecture." I like TopLink. But I'd have voted for Hibernate there, simply because for every Toplink user, there are 5 vocal hibernate users. If Hibernate was in the category... maybe it's me, but I don't trust that result.
    When I was an editor for JDJ, I wanted to change these polls to make them really worthwhile. For example, I wanted every question to have two phases: a product usage phase and a voting phase. The product usage would ask the voter which of the nominated products they'd used, and to suggest any products that were NOT nominated in the category (that should have been, of course.) The voting phase would show you only the products you'd said you had used, and give you a chance to say "of the products I have used, product X is the best." The votes would be tallied and weighted according to what you've used, so if all you've used in JDBC, and that's what you voted for, well... your vote counts, but not for much. But if you've used TopLink, EJB2, JDBC, Spring DAO, Prevayler, Hibernate, and OJB - and voted for Hibernate - well, chances are your vote actually means more since you've experience with the other products.

    Unfortunately, I never had resources to create this kind of voting process. Any volunteers?
    Reply to this Reply to original

  18. JDJ's Readers Choice Awards posted[ Go to top ]

    Sample size. JDJ had 17000 voters... which seems awfully small for their proclaimed readership size, especially across their entire publication lineup.

    19. The "voters" do not constitute a sample. They are "voters". They selected themselves. Of course that is a common and major fallacy in all these stupid polls.

    Another note, there were not criteria and little context by which to evaluate the products. People who do a lot of web pages may think Java sucks and Ruby on Rails rocks, but I do a lot of enterprise services, so I love Java and like/respect JEE and I don't give a hoot about RoR.

    Anyone who would select or purchase a product based on these polls and contests or use them to justify a decision is an idiot and a fool. So the value in them is that 1) We are talking about JDJ so that is good advertising for them and 2) All the mentioned products are getting some generally good publicity.
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  • JDJ's Readers Choice Awards posted[ Go to top ]

    with SWT winning "best Java class library"

    I thought this was rather odd, especially as there seems to be a lack of visible SWT applications around. (There is only one I know of, apart from Eclipse, that is regularly mentioned - Azeureus). Am I wrong? Is there a lot of separate SWT development, as against use of Eclipse as a framework? (This also seems rather strange, as SWT is not a pure Java class library, but contains a layer of native code).
    Reply to this Reply to original

  • JDJ's Readers Choice Awards posted[ Go to top ]

    with SWT winning "best Java class library"
    I thought this was rather odd, especially as there seems to be a lack of visible SWT applications around.
    For from me the idea of defending these farcical results, but the category is "best", not "most visible". If a library is considered technically good, which SWT is in my opinion, then it deserves its place there, no matter its adoption rate...

    --
    Cedric
    Reply to this Reply to original

  • JDJ's Readers Choice Awards posted[ Go to top ]

    with SWT winning "best Java class library"
    I thought this was rather odd, especially as there seems to be a lack of visible SWT applications around.
    For from me the idea of defending these farcical results, but the category is "best", not "most visible". If a library is considered technically good, which SWT is in my opinion, then it deserves its place there, no matter its adoption rate...-- Cedric

    I see what you mean, but I expected that a technically good library (or one that is considered technically good) would have some reasonable level of take-up, especially when it has links to something as popular as Eclipse. Calling something 'best' when it is (apparently) not that much used seems rather pointless. However, as you say, trying to interpret these things is probably pointless as well...
    Reply to this Reply to original

  • JDJ's Readers Choice Awards posted[ Go to top ]

    I see what you mean, but I expected that a technically good library (or one that is considered technically good) would have some reasonable level of take-up, especially when it has links to something as popular as Eclipse. Calling something 'best' when it is (apparently) not that much used seems rather pointless. However, as you say, trying to interpret these things is probably pointless as well...
    So should Windows win "Best OS"? :)
    Reply to this Reply to original

  • JDJ's Readers Choice Awards posted[ Go to top ]

    I see what you mean, but I expected that a technically good library (or one that is considered technically good) would have some reasonable level of take-up, especially when it has links to something as popular as Eclipse. Calling something 'best' when it is (apparently) not that much used seems rather pointless. However, as you say, trying to interpret these things is probably pointless as well...
    So should Windows win "Best OS"? :)

    Not just funny, but also a good point! Windows is popular because it is usually bundled as the default OS in a machine. Perhaps one reason for SWT's success in this poll is because it is the 'bundled' GUI with Eclipse.
    Reply to this Reply to original

  • Spring Anyone?[ Go to top ]

    Where is Spring? Not even in the runners up ???
    Reply to this Reply to original

  • Suggestion[ Go to top ]

    I would like to see JDJ publish the final vote count by company email accounts. I expect to see in a large number of @ibm.com and @borland.com votes in categories where the company product is placed high.

    I do understand that when you work for a company that marketing will always send emails around urging all employees to vote for product X and that there will also be employees that actually use the products in question but does an employee of say IBM honestly know every single product that the company sells and can claim it to be better than the rest.

    Looking at the real-time votes during the early part of this award it was apparent that whoever was voting for Eclipse was also voting for every other single IBM product. The votes across categories was almost level for each IBM product.

    What was good this time around was the option to not vote within a category which helps to some degree in removing those that vote base on brand name and not actual product usage.

    We need more product benchmarks. Now that is so much more interesting though somewhat harder when all your competitors refuse to allow anyone to download their product and use it without already signing an PO and agreeing to an army of consultants to visit and assist you.


    Regards,

    William Louth
    JXInsight Product Architect
    JInspired

    "J*EE tuning, testing and tracing with JXInsight"
    http://www.jinspired.com
    Reply to this Reply to original

  • Suggestion[ Go to top ]

    I would like to see JDJ publish the final vote count by company email accounts. I expect to see in a large number of @ibm.com and @borland.com votes in categories where the company product is placed high.http://www.jinspired.com

    Of course, they need to do that AFTER they collect the results. Otherwise the marketing departments will just ask their staff to use non-company email addresses and vote from home to avoid IP address tracking.

    But it would help cut this out...
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  • JDJ's Readers Choice Awards posted[ Go to top ]

    If there's one tech-media company I wish would disappear off the face of the earth it would be SysCon. That company produces the most commercially biased BS in addition to the worst articles I've ever read.

    The JDJ awards are nothing more than another channel for thier sponsors to advertise.
    Reply to this Reply to original

  • JDJ's Readers Choice Awards posted[ Go to top ]

    If there's one tech-media company I wish would disappear off the face of the earth it would be SysCon. That company produces the most commercially biased BS in addition to the worst articles I've ever read. The JDJ awards are nothing more than another channel for thier sponsors to advertise.

    Amen.

    And in addition to that all the SysCon websites are so heinous its difficult to get past them to see any actual content - with 75% screen real estate devoted to ads, pop over ads, all sorts of spinning moving scrolling crap, so on. Every time I click a SysCon link its "here we go with this crap again, close tab".
    Reply to this Reply to original

  • JDJ's Readers Choice Awards posted[ Go to top ]

    Um. Guys. Before you start on the conspiracy theories, note that Hibernate was not nominated for any award. I'm not sure who nominated HiA (Manning I suppose).

    I bet if Hibernate would have been nominated it would have been in with an excellent shot ;)
    Reply to this Reply to original

  • JDJ's Readers Choice Awards posted[ Go to top ]

    To prove my unbiased point:

    iBATIS SQL Maps (a project that I started) is the second runner up in the persistence architecture category.

    Even I would agree that Hibernate should be the clear winner, above TopLink, Apple WebObjects (!) and iBATIS. I'm happy to be part of the #2 or possibly #3 open source persistence project. But I know who #1 is, and it's definitely Hibernate.

    Seriously, the JDJ awards are biased, incompetent or at best: irrelevant.
    Reply to this Reply to original

  • JDJ's Readers Choice Awards posted[ Go to top ]

    which it bills as "The Oscars of the Software Industry."
    Seems more like the "Golden Raspberry Awards".
    Reply to this Reply to original

  • JDJ's Readers Choice Awards posted[ Go to top ]

    Eclipse won multiple awards for different components, still the best IDE is IDEA! Weird!
    Reply to this Reply to original

  • oh...nothing to JSF - Oh forgot its not developers.com[ Go to top ]

    awards are fun
    Reply to this Reply to original

  • JDJ's Readers Choice Awards posted[ Go to top ]

    This award is funny!
    IDEA is best IDE!


    Regards,
    Ahmed Hashim
    Software Engineer
    Egypt
    Egypt Java User Group http://www.egjug.org
    Reply to this Reply to original

  • Not Oscar of SW industry, but Oscar of Java industry[ Go to top ]

    Obviously this award is focussed on java-technology. So I would call it "Oscar of the Java industry", because SW-industry is slightly more than Java and its surrounding technologies. Maybe not much more, but slightly more is guaranteed to be true.
    Reply to this Reply to original

  • Suprising results[ Go to top ]

    Do you really think that
    Sun Java Application Server (Sun Microsystems) is better than IBM WebSphere Application Server (IBM)
    or any IDE(even IDEA)can be better than ecplise
    or Java SE (Sun Microsystems) is a better JVM than BEA WebLogic JRockit (BEA Systems)

    These results have a strong trustworhiness problem
    Reply to this Reply to original

  • Suprising results[ Go to top ]

    Do you really think that Sun Java Application Server (Sun Microsystems) is better than IBM WebSphere Application Server (IBM)or any IDE (even IDEA)can be better than eclipse or Java SE (Sun Microsystems) is a better JVM than BEA WebLogic JRockit (BEA Systems)These results have a strong trustworhiness problem
    Well... as a user of most (or all?) of these products...

    Let's see... Sun AS? Check. Websphere? Check. IDEA? Check. Netbeans? Check. Eclipse? Check. Sun's JVM? Check. JRockit? Check.

    Okay, as a user of all of the products you mentioned, I can easily see a justification for them. I can't endorse any of the products specifically, although I can say that Sun's app server has strengths (and weaknesses) just as WebSphere does, and I can see Sun winning (just like I can see WebSphere, or WebLogic, or JBoss, or JoNaS, or whatever winning.)

    I can also say that of the IDEs mentioned, IDEA is certainly a major candidate for the award, just as Eclipse is, and Netbeans is getting closer all the time.

    Of the JVMs, I can also say that JRockit is great for some things (and less great for others) and has its own issues - not all of them JRockit's fault. But those would still factor in to whether people prefer one or the other, and Sun's JVM, for better or for worse, is the standard.

    So are the awards worthwhile? I don't know. I've outlined what I don't like about them... but I also think that somebody voted for the winners, for some reason. It goes both ways.
    Reply to this Reply to original

  • Suprising results[ Go to top ]

    Do you really think that Sun Java Application Server (Sun Microsystems) is better than IBM WebSphere Application Server (IBM)or any IDE(even IDEA)can be better than ecpliseor Java SE (Sun Microsystems) is a better JVM than BEA WebLogic JRockit (BEA Systems)These results have a strong trustworhiness problem

    Yes I do (but I'm completely and utterly biased). However you might want to check out what Laurie McVitie (of Network Computing) wrote about Sun's App Server vs IBM's WAS :

    http://www.networkcomputing.com/showitem.jhtml?articleID=164903142

    You should also understand that this "popularity contest" is just that - so don't be suprised if volume wins.

    Rich Sharples
    Sun Microsystems
    http://blogs.sun.com/theaquarium
    Reply to this Reply to original

  • Suprising results[ Go to top ]

    At a company level I like IBM over Sun any day. But at a product level, I have to say, Sun's Application Server is actually very good. They have no market share and they couldn't sell a dingy to a drowning man, but it's a decent piece of software. Similar to the NetBeans story really.

    IBM WAS is a pile of garbage. I'm very excited to see that WAS Community Edition will be based on Geronimo...hopefully the commercial options follow.
    Reply to this Reply to original

  • Suprising results[ Go to top ]

    At a company level I like IBM over Sun any day. But at a product level, I have to say, Sun's Application Server is actually very good. They have no market share and they couldn't sell a dingy to a drowning man, but it's a decent piece of software. Similar to the NetBeans story really.IBM WAS is a pile of garbage. I'm very excited to see that WAS Community Edition will be based on Geronimo...hopefully the commercial options follow.

    I developed/architected for WAS from version 3.0 through version 5.1. It wasn't perfect, but it continually improved. I also appreciated the fact that unlike Weblogic, they tended to avoid pre-standard J2EE implementations which by definition were proprietary and skewed the design too much toward the particular platform. Frankly, I also appreciated the integration between IBM's IDE (VAJ/WSAD) and WAS because it made development much easier. That level of integration wasn't readily available for other products when we decided on WAS in 1999.

    I have no experience with Sun's server. Could you give us some of what you might consider important differences/advantages/disadvantages?
    Reply to this Reply to original

  • JDJ's Readers Choice Awards posted[ Go to top ]

    I think many are getting too worked up about this popularity poll. I used to read JDJ when I was first starting out on Java. I gave it up when my experience passed up the low-to-medium level of the articles. Another thing that made me give it up was that I started to like and use open-source tools more than the stuff that was advertised.

    All this poll really means is that of the JDJ readership many of them nominated and voted for their favorite tools. No doubt that some of the companies of the tools told their employees to vote - I would too.

    I really doubt the results of this survey are taken seriously by many. I look at it as a way to see what's out there and what is being used to some degree.

    Some of my favorite tools weren't included - who cares.
    Reply to this Reply to original