David Heinemeier Hansson >> Rails is much more traditional and familiar to most programmers. Java programmers with years of experience in J2EE can switch to Rails quickly and all they have to learn is what drudgery not to do any more.

"J2EE programmers can switch to Rails quickly..."

Seaside, on the other hand, is an entirely different paradigm. It's new, fresh thinking. And for certain narrow domains it can definitely offer significant improvements over the traditional request/response model.

But I don't see it as something that's going to catch a ton of mainstream traction the way Rails has. It's simply too different for too many people. And for the "most applications most of the time" sphere, it doesn't offer enough benefits over something like Rails to be worth the mental rewrite for most people.

I certainly encourage you to take a look regardless. It'll broaden your mind.

Satish Talim >> Bruce Tate’s book “Beyond Java” and his articles that talk about how Java developers are adopting Ruby, have sparked off a keen interest in Ruby and “Rails” . Do you see Ruby and “Rails” as the language / framework replacing Java in the long run?

David Heinemeier Hansson >> Languages are never fully replaced. There are still Cobol and Fortan systems out there. And 10 years from now, there will still be Java systems out there. So its not an either/or thing.

"Majority of new web-application development will leave Java in the coming years..."

But yes, I definitely believe that the majority of new web-application development will leave Java in the coming years. Such is evolution. Java served as a very valuable link in that evolution taking business programming out of C++. Now its time to accept that there are more productive ways out there to achieve the same. Just as Java convinced people of that in the mid 90'es. I think 10 years is a great run. Just as Fox should have let The X-Files end with dignity around season 7, so should programmers let Java retire from the spotlight of web applications in dignity.

"Let Java retire from the spotlight of web applications in dignity..."