Search Jar files in Web! Awesome

This site allows me to search for jar files that contain a given class name. The best thing is once I subscribe, it automatically pops into action if I do a google search for a fully qualified java class name ! Cool :)

Java Vs Other languages

One my friends,Dinesh mentioned that google Directory for programming languages is a good place to find whatever you need about a programming language. Well it definitely seems to be.

Here is one of my quick observations ;) The number of Java resource links is nearly 3500, where as C++ has a mere 929 and php hangs around 1600! I'm primarily a java programmer myself, almost all the projects I am working on right now are based on Java (except for one which is based on JavaScript). But I never thought it is this popular :)

Right - time to put up the thinking hats. Why is java so popular ? (Ok let's assume that the number of resource links available in google directory is an indication of popularity). I would say

I. Platform independence - "Write once - run anywhere" capability
As a matter of fact you cannot run a java program 'anywhere' unless there is a virtual machine. But its as good as anywhere. Also I know some folks who would say its "write once debug everywhere" but any such platform dependent bugs are probably VM issues. All in all this platform independence is a huge plus point for enterprise development saving tons of cash and effort in porting products.

II. Ease of use
I'm not really sure how many hard nut programmers would agree with me but programs are easy to visualize when they are object oriented (once you get the hang of it). After the concept is built, it becomes much easier to realize it in code.

III. Free runtime/compilers/tools
This was one of the best moves by Sun. The runtime is free, the developement kit is free and now there are a ton of other tools built with java for java that are free. This makes java development easy and affordable.

Any more ?

What fuels research in Computer Science ?

A few days ago there was an intersting discussion among myself and my lab mates Katz and Prateek. What fuels the research in computer science ? Is it possible to make the existing algorithms /technologies better or are there any interesting problems in other domains that challenge computer science ?
Well, the latter is definitely true. Take the field of bioinformatics for example. One interesting thing with biology is the vast amount of data that it provides. This itself is a challenge to computer science and provide grounds to look for better ways to handle large amounts of data efficiently. There are other fields such as geology that provides similar problems to computer science.
However it can be seen that computer science itself provides fuel to research in computer science. For example the research on computer networks has made them faster and efficient, opening up a number of other interesting research areas such as Web services. Increase in computer power (due to the research in processor technology) enables newer algorithms and computer technologies to be explored. So computer science itself opens up new avenues of research.
Is there any specific path one should take ? Well it's upto the individual :)