Let’s take a moment to step back from the AAAHHH SUN AND/OR JAVA IS DYING gloom and doom and enjoy a good old-fashioned public slap-fight, shall we? The debate centers on an article about Web frameworks, and the increasing complexity thereof. The article is from Dave Bulmore, the developer of jWebApp; Bulmore naturally feels that jWebApp is an antidote to said complexity. (In this sense, the article is not unlike John O’Hanley’s JavaWorld article on harmful Java idioms, which leads naturally into the framework he developed to avoid those idioms.)Then Bulmore posted his story on DZone, someone voted it down, and everything went completely bonkers as accusations and counteraccusations of jerkiness, persecution, and infantile behavior flew. I urge you to read through the comments on the story (including — nay, especially — the ones that have been modded down) in order to get a look at a cautionary example on getting involved in ludicrously overblown fights on the Internet. Dave Newton, the other major participant in the fray, at least followed up with a thoughtful response to the original article. But why the contretemps to begin with?Perhaps a clue comes from Bulmore in the DZone comment thread: “I also notice complaints about me plugging my project. ALMOST EVERY ARTICLE ON DZONE IS SOMEONE PLUGGING THEIR PROJECT IN SOME WAY OR ANOTHER. We’re all trying to get exposure.” The reality of community developer sites — complete with voting up or down for submissions — is that they’re more than just social networks, or places for high-minded intellectual exchanges; people’s livelihoods depend on how posts are received and assessed, and that freaks people out. Doesn’t necessarily excuse crazed behavior, but it does explain it. Software Development