Java vs RoR for Enterprise Applications: a Battle that Will Never End

Actually, a programming language isn’t like a pair of jeans that fit everything. Even if you have a clear goal in mind to create enterprise applications, there are too many details that will influence your choice between Ruby on Rails and Java.

Moreover, enterprise applications software (EAS) is difficult with an insane amount of information. But results are well worth the efforts. In 2015, the financial and the banking services market generated $23.75 billion in revenue worldwide from enterprise applications.

Why Ruby on Rails

Ruby on Rails is an elegant and compact way to create web apps really quickly. This is a beginner-friendly programming language with simple syntax.

Ruby is one of the Top 10 programming languages. GitHub, Hulu, and Airbnb actively use Ruby on Rails. In 2015, there were approximately 1.78 million downloads of Rails 5 and more than 2 million of Rails 4.2.7.

What is Ruby on Rails used for? RoR is a common framework because it offers many choices for programmers when they create the administration interfaces for their enterprise apps. If they need to create simple model relations and elementary blog-like website, Ruby on Rails is a good match.

RoR and Java have some similarities.

• They have the same object-oriented principles, memory is controlled by a garbage collector.
• Objects are strongly typified.
• There are protected public and private methods.
• There are embedded doc instruments.

Now, let’s consider their pros and cons and benefits over each other.

Pros of Ruby on Rails Enterprise Application Development

• Intuitive and simple code.
• Ruby on Rails refines and gets quicker. Ruby on Rails keeps updating and developing. New improvements make the language cleaner, faster, and safer.
• This is a perfect fit for startups because it has opportunities to speed up the process and match the limited budget. Moreover, RoR is a free open-source framework.
• Various gems allow programmers to fulfill rich functionality in apps.
• It saves time: on average, programmers create apps 30-40% quicker by using RoR.
• Ruby is quick to handle the vast majority of web applications.
• This is a multilateral tool.
• It has a strong community of web developers.
• It is close to English and applies an internal DSL with its own semantics. That’s why users don’t need to apply an external parser.

Advantages of Ruby over Java

• First of all, by using Ruby on Rails, you may achieve the goal with fewer lines of coding. It allows for improving bug fixing.
• RoR doesn’t need compilation and code may be interpreted. But Java code has to be compiled.
• RoR brings readability and flexibility.
• RoR allows the programmer to skip a few codes, while Java follows a strict C syntax.
• Ruby on Rails does not have type statements, and you may set a name to a variable as required. In Java, each member variable pertains to some class. Therefore, a web developer needs to declare the type of the variable before applying it in code.
• Ruby developer may try different third-party toolkits involving  Ruby-GNOME2, GUI FXRuby WxRuby, Qt, etc.
• Users have private variables.
• You may skip parentheses.
• There’s no casting and static type checking.

On the other hand, RoR and Java may be used together, and they supplement each other.

Cons of Ruby on Rails Enterprise Application Development

• The ecosystem is limited outside of web development. When Ruby developer searches to generate, host and manipulate or secure a platform, you may do that but without the depth.
• It has lack of opportunities for high-performance math, UI development, and embedded footprint environments.
• Meta-programming brings confusion for new programmers. The ability for libraries to augment and open classes confuse new developers. For example, if two modules will retrofit the same function on the same class, it will cause a number of issues.

Pros of Java

Java is a computing platform for enterprise applications and one of the most popular programming language. It is reliable, secure and fast.

Enterprise applications promote various business processes involving resource planning, operations management, and data. A great enterprise app needs to be secure, portable and scalable. Java has many libraries and tools, and ODEs allow programmers to easily implement and design any feature. That’s one of the reasons why 90% of Fortune 500 companies apply this language. More than 3 million devices use Java, according to Oracle.

It is used to develop such applications: enterprise applications, desktop GUI applications, web applications, involving front and back office electronic trading systems, e-commerce apps, etc., embedded systems, Android apps, scientific applications, middleware products.

Related article: Java Outsourcing Companies: Cultural Differences, Benefits of Java and More

Let’s consider the main advantages of Java for EAS.

• Integrated development environments for Java may bring meaningful feedback on errors and more details where they appear without having to run the code. It speeds up debugging and allows learning from mistakes.
• Moreover, Integrated development environments have autocomplete abilities to faster learn programming libraries.
• It provides flexibility and has a massive amount of libraries and APIs.
• Useful programming standards.
• Standardized coding styles in Java allow to speed up the processes with existing patterns. And it’s simpler to follow others’ example code, and meet a standard of quality.
• 86% of all smartphones are powered by Android and Java fits Android, leads the enterprise app market and drives the Tiobe chart.
• Actually, it is the heart of the Android operating system. Platform independence allows merging business app with desktop software. Moreover, with Java, you can easily migrate to any database or platform.
• It is a great choice for forward-thinking businessmen. This is the second common language for data science and machine learning. These are very promising areas as the global cognitive computing market will be $12 billion in the next few years.

• Managed memory.
• This is free and mature language.
• Native threads.
• Secure features to protect systems.
• Web developers think that coding in Java is simple and comfortable. It doesn’t demand pointers and eased operations with agile coding structures.
• It has stack provision system that saves data and the statistics that may be rebuilt quickly. The operation of garbage collection allows providing automatic garbage collection.
• It has needed networking capabilities.
• Companies may reuse written Java codes for other apps.
• Advanced authentication helps to implement secure login mechanisms, and developing the custom security policy to protect internal data.
• Java also supports Public Key Infrastructure that refines the application response time during validating and checking security certificate statuses.

Benefits of Java over RoR

• If consider Ruby vs Java performance, Java brings better application performance.
• Java code execution is quicker because of transformation into machine language, and the Java Virtual machine create the code quicker.
• Java is a well-known language, and it’s easier to find a solution to your specific challenge.

Cons of Java

• Confusing misfeatures. For example, encapsulation has a complex control model. It leads to the insecure classes, package, makes programs public even if you don’t plan to widely open access. Another example is anonymous subclasses that are unreadable without knowing a special-case feature
• Simple types such as booleans, integers, and characters have to be managed as special cases.
• It has a lack of high-level features.
• Java develops very slowly and doesn’t have all modern features.
• This language is overkill for small applications.

There are many discussions around Ruby on Rails vs Java. As we described above, RoR fits startups and helps beginners to start coding. It has helpful features to debug, programmers may skip a few codes. It has the power to create needed functionality in enterprise applications. If taking into account Java, it wins with the high popularity, ability to migrate to any other app, database or platform. This is a highly prepared language for machine learning and data science.

So, explore the similarities and differences of these programming languages and make a decision which one will match your business needs. Read the shortcomings of the languages as well to eliminate all errors.