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I've been focusing on multimedia applications and I've noticed that most applications don't use Java in the back end. Instead, I see solutions with PHP/ROR/Python and Flash/Silverlight without any trace of Java in the application stack.

What part of Java is either limiting or constrained - or perceived as limiting or constrained - when building multimedia applications?

Let me clarify, when I said Java, I meant Java EE. Of course on the client side people will use flash or html5 for audio/video. But what I am trying is that, why is most multimedia platforms backend is created with PHP/ROR/Python(Django)? There are many audio distribution platforms out there. soundcloud.com (uses go lang), tunrtable.fm (uses Python) youtube.com (uses PHP), is Java EE not capable of doing those?

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Just like you like to program in Java, other people like to program in PHP or ROR or Python. – DFord Feb 20 at 15:35
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I'd argue that this is a fine question. It may need some edits to make it more clear. – Craige Feb 20 at 18:15
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Java applets were neat when they originally came out but they had poor performance & didn't evolve to handle rich multimedia content. When Flash came out it had better performance & a smaller footprint with less installation hassles, leading to it taking over the market and developer mindshare. Once Flash became dominant, Java in the browser pretty much died off outside of a few niche uses. – Sean McSomething Feb 20 at 20:28
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Perhaps it has something to do with all the security bugs that made companies uninstall Java plugins from browsers? – MrFox Feb 21 at 15:11
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@MrFox From the comment above yours - I meant Java EE - this is not client side browsers that is being mentioned. – MichaelT Feb 21 at 15:16
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I think all you have to do is look at the industry all around and you'll see the same pattern. PHP, Ruby, and Python are the preferred languages these days for building web applications. This is largely due to their interpreted nature and low barrier to entry (compared to Java) making development fast, easy, and cheap. This makes it ideal for somebody to hit the ground running when they have an idea.

Java EE is absolutely capable of handling the same tasks as any of those languages, whether the application is multi-media or otherwise. Java however, is compiled, verbose, and expensive (developers). This makes it not an ideal solution that everybody runs to when they want to rapidly prototype something. Java's limelight has been in the enterprise where companies are willing to shell out hundreds of thousands for developers, who quite honestly, are *usually better trained than the majority of PHP devs.

*= That's not to say that PHP devs are untrained, but rather by sheer numbers and barrier to entry means you'll encounter a lot MORE untrained/undertrained PHP programmers that you have to weed through. (Source: the last company I worked at was looking for an additional full time PHP dev. We interviewed a lot of amateurs.)

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what's wrong with being verbose? – KyelJmD Feb 21 at 16:42
Nothing is wrong with it. I prefer verbosity for the most part as it makes things clear. However it doesn't make it easy to get up and running fast, as compared to other, less verbose alternatives. Verbose ~= more code. – Craige Feb 21 at 16:47
@KyelJmD typically the deadlines and timetables for web applications is much tighter then for desktop applications (which is sorta dumb (and why we have so many crappy websites) but that's an entirely different matter). Verbosity typically does not make for faster development cycles. – ryan Feb 21 at 16:47
@KyelJmD Verbosity hides meaning and obscures what should be simple. – Andres F. Feb 21 at 17:06
@AndresF. - Simplicity hides function and obscures what's actually very complicated. – Craige Feb 21 at 17:09
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