Question

A client of mine wants a news website designed in Java, and I told him that Java is overkill for that kind of website. I suggested to him that there are dozens of CMS that we can customize for him, as well as other programming languages that are better suited for websites but he insisted.

Is Java overkill for news websites?

Answer 1

I think the real issue here is that whoever your client is has this notion that problems can be solved by name-dropping programming languages. I understand that you recognize this problem too, but in any business ‘the customer is always right’ and you’ll have to give in.

So is Java overkill for news websites? That depends. If what he’s asking for is available in Drupal or even WordPress out of the box, then the answer is yes. The real questions further on will be:

• How much expertise does his organization have on Java (you have to consider the possibility that he wants to maintain the system by himself — if his employees know Java, you now know why he insists on it)
• What are the features that he actually wants? How will the site evolve in the future? (There will be features that will be more difficult to implement in PHP than in Java)
• What are the cost implications? (If he wants it cheaper, you can offer to simply customize Drupal or WordPress, but if budget is not a major consideration, going with Java would be fine).