Technology for startups – Open Source vs Contemporary?
The growth of web draws the focus on the open frameworks that have risen during the era,
and their comparative value in a post open source Java world. Java is a great programming language and did bring revolution in the object oriented concepts, (esp. when we look back into the time of applets) ; and now with all kind of Flash/AJAX rules and XHTML concepts, its really been diversified and things have changed drastically.
With the advent of Open source concepts,the changes taking place on a web programming level is really mesmerizing. It has brought in all set of features and can pamper the User Interface to a new level.
Open Source concepts are good to be implemented, but one needs to be overcautious and needs to be a core (read die-hard) programmer who could understand things better.
Open Source myths in India is in by large people concluding as everything to be free, but in Reality “Open Source is like free speech and not free beer”
When we could take into accountability of Java vs PHP & Ruby, we could very well say the Open source movements are more encouraging. Recently JRE[Java Runtime Environment]
was released as a Open Source medium, this was due to the fact of growing community and support by developers for Open Source concepts and PHP and Ruby which are leading the way.In the views of Tim, who is Director of Web Technologies at Sun Microsystems, co-creator of the XML 1.0 and XML Namespace standards, co-founder of Open-Text,
His idea, if you are able to take it on the surface only, is to rate your priorities of:
Scalability, Dev Speed, Dev Tools, Maintainability.
In this highly generalized approach, you could theoretically pick your web application building language/framework based on only these priorities.Tim says “Good apps, once built, tend to be in production for an astonishingly long time. Which means that they have to be maintained for an astonishingly long time. Which means that maintainability is important. There are a lot of things that go into maintainability, but I suggest that the biggies are object-orientation, MVC architecture, code readability, and code size.”
On the maintainability side Tim places Ruby on Rails out front. Quoting him again, Tim describes why RoR is in the lead here.
“Mostly because there’s less code. The fact that Ruby forces MVC on you helps too, also the fact that the templating and [Object Relational Mapping (ORM)] and testing and application code are all so tightly integrated helps. Bear in mind that we still don’t know how well Rails is going to work outside of the CRUD-centered greenfield app space where it shines.”
The fact that open source options are being stacked up against the likes of Java and .NET, and have a similar levels of support is a blessing. Today, with the open-sourcing of Java,we have a new entry onto the field.
Rather than exclude one or another, this arrival is going to make the open source web world, warmer, more sophisticated, and for better or worse, a little sunnier.
Myself being an avid Java lover and been into EAI application from last 4 years, it took me less time to have a makeover and to adopt to the open source policies and now I worship PHP.
When we compare to the contemporary and the future versions in Open Source medium, we could conlude:
a. Ease of development:
Its pretty easy to migrate, spend couple of sleepless night and within fortnight you are up and running with Open Source (also depending on what, where you need to implement). Open source applictaions, at enterprise level, it hasn’t had a firm footprint.
b. Scalability
On a Enterprise level Open Source can’t replace existing Mainframes, Java applications and Integrtaion solutions, but on a relatively small scale its a clear winner by using good web services we could still match to the existing features, it all depends on new version to be released for PHP and Ruby, PHP does support XML and XSLT, but not to full extent.
c. Community
Community support for open source is BEST, get registered with active groups and you are done, you would get all the support related to it.
d. What’s the future?
Future looks bright for Open Source medium, the more migration from the monopoly level, it gives a edge for Open Source movements, In India open source is yet to evolve, we are more into Servicing the existing products and Open source always regards to build new product, so hope it does change the theme in India.
e. Learning curve – what extra do i need to learn to use the language?
The only investment needed is technical expertise and to have good friends within the community, you need to be a programmer first and could migrate to Open source on the needs.
I would urge people to shift from a contemporary mode to Open Source Development
About the author - Bit more social, but very adaptable for any technology which believes in Open Source Concepts!
Dream of building a product Company in INDIA
well i agre to most of what you wrote there..
Its a nice article but the title is highly subjective..
Cause Contemporary cant always be on that side of the fence.. If you look at it, Unix Kernels, TCP/IP, etc are Contemporary and yet kicking.. A more appropriate comparison would be Open Source vs Proprietary technology.. The very fact that you are portraying that the future belongs to the Open Source community would be the highlight in once such comparision..
good going anyways and Welcome to the world of blogging..
I would say its more to do with the finances than with anything else. As a startup if I have spend a fortune on licenses I can better sit back and continue doing my job.
Which one to choose out of the choice is left to team, mostly considering the criteria of ease of development, availability of skills.
What do you think?
Ramjee
I think any start up in a field that has its core as Tech (any kind) is better of with Open Source. The reason being proprietary technologies may let you concentrate on your job now, but what if the way you are expected to do your job changes? After all markets are dynamic and ever changing.
Every few years (now) the way we do things is turned on its head. Having the skills and the tech in house (or dispersed over a very wide network aka Open Source) is always a better choice than waiting for your centralized proprietary solution provider who may or may not adapt.
Also Open Source allows many start ups and as a result ideas to be incubated at a fairly low cost. So it is actually a benefit for all (consumers). Open source is usually viewed as a Leftist-Communist thing among pro-proprietary groups. But they could not be farther from the truth. Open Source is the closest we have gotten to the (hidden hand) free market system envisioned by Adam Smith (hopefully more on this later.)
And though the finance aspect cannot be neglected, tomorrow even if Inasra were to make it big, the only solutions running my company will be open source. In fact I will be willing to pay premium for Open Sourced solutions.
And finally if your business is even remotely connected to Tech, then stop treating your tech side as cost centers, they will be your revenue generators in the long run if incubated well.
We lived in a world where power (force) could get you money and skills (the middle ages.)
And then there was the industrial age where money could get you force and skills.
We are now in the age where skills and skills alone can get you money and power. And the reason is because the money factor has been all but removed from your Tech infrastructure.
(Insight from Alvin Toffler)
Of the three which would you want to live in?