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ActiveGrid pushes lightweight LAMP development

Peter Yared, CEO of ActiveGrid, has said that Java is a dinosaur. In our podcast interview, Yared, who spent five years at Sun working with Java, explains why he believes that the alternative--lightweight development based on open source LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL and Perl/Python/PHP)--is preferable to Java for many kinds of applications.
Written by Dan Farber, Inactive

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Peter Yared, CEO of ActiveGrid, has said that Java is a dinosaur. In our podcast interview, Yared, who spent five years at Sun working with Java, explains why he believes that the alternative--lightweight development based on open source LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL and Perl/Python/PHP)--is preferable to Java for many kinds of applications. He noted that user facing code historically has been done with scripting languages, going back to Visual Basic and PowerSoft, and with higher level tools, in contrast to enterprise applications.  (See the recent Infoworld review of ActiveGrid Application Builder and Server, which concludes that the software won't appeal to programmers who "enjoy the support and safety net of strong typing and a rigorous object model.") 

Yared also includes open source Java (such as Tomcat, Spring and Hibernate), Ruby on Rails and 'skinny' .Net. as emerging options in the lightweight platform class. 

In the podcast, Yared explains his company's hybrid stategy, mixing open source with proprietary code on the server, and the need for Sun to get on with open sourcing Java. He contends that all the Java innovation is happening in open source, and that the JCP (Java Community Process) playing catch up. If they can open source Solaris and Open Office without forking, the same should be true for Java, Yared said. He also explains the 'grid' in active grid.

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