Phobos: Does Sun have a good thing under its nose?
Written by admin on November 11th, 2006 in Ajax News.
There have been a lot of discussions on JavaScript on the server side, which naturally comes up as an idea when you consider:
- Some argue that JavaScript is becoming the platform, more-so than the JVM or the CLR. With Ajax, Flash, and Apollo, this could become even MORE true.
- Many developers (have to) know JavaScript
- Many developers are learning JavaScript
- Include the Flash guys too
Instead of programming in Java, PHP, or Ruby, and having mechanisms to generate JavaScript (GWT, rails helpers, etc), maybe we will end up developing end to end in JavaScript?
Wouldn’t it be nice to be in one language (that is very flexible, and allows you to code functionally, procedurally, OO-ally, etc)?
JavaScript doesn’t have everything it needs. But, there is glue to help it out. With Rhino, the under pinnings could be written in Java, but the developer wouldn’t have to write Java. This always happens of course. My Rails applications rely on a LOT of C code, but I am not spending my time in that area.
What if the next BEA is a company that comes up with the killer JavaScript Application Server?
This is where Phobos comes in:
Project Phobos is a lightweight, scripting-friendly, web application environment running on the Java platform, aimed at addressing emerging developer requirements. Scripting and dynamic languages are growing in popularity among developers, especially for building Web applications. These developers place special value on rapid application development and deployment.
The goal of Project Phobos is to show that Java is an excellent platform for server-side scripting, allowing dynamic-language developers to leverage the power of Java SE and EE. The initial focus for Project Phobos is JavaScript, but the design supports the use of other dynamic languages as well.
Sun may already have this. Will they be able to market it? Unfortunately, the track record isn’t there, so it will probably languish. Buy maybe not.
Source: Ajaxian
Original Article: http://ajaxian.com/archives/phobos-does-sun-have-a-good-thing-under-its-nose