Simple Rule for Upgrades Don't install the newest version until other people have been using it for 2 weeks without serious complaint. I follow this rule for all software and have never had a problem with TWS or my frontend software. (The exception to this requirement is SierraChart where the core is very well protected when changed).
Are we talking about TWS? It's just a GUI client that talks to a server. No interfacing with a DBMS. Java is great for things like TWS because all the graphical libraries have been written for you, it works on multiple platforms without source code changes, and it has much better error handling that C or C++, which means programs can recover from errors rather than just dying. One of the articles you cited, "Moving Past Java", talks about Ruby. While Ruby may be fine for WebCGI applications, I'm not sure you'd want to write a GUI that handles potentially hundreds of updates per second in Ruby.
IB TWS 853.7 apparently won't save the tool bar configuration either. I have to configure it again every time I log on even after saving settings.
I will risk sounding like a broken record, and repeat once again my criticism that I agree that IB lacks adequate quality control, and needs to shift its priorities in that direction, and away from all the bells and whistles and new products, blah blah blah, they should stick to their knitting and get it right, before they move on to bigger and better things.
Quote from loufah: Java is great for things like TWS because all the graphical libraries have been written for you Too bad they're still kind of "quirky", even ugly, in spots, though. [Java] has much better error handling that C or C++, which means programs can recover from errors rather than just dying. I'm relatively inexperienced in Java, but I have to properly code traps for exceptions, just like I do in C++. No difference here that I'm aware of.
Java's garbage collection and "no pointers" do make a big difference in eliminating some of the most pernicious bugs that occur in C/C++ code. It's not just a matter of exception handling. For large chunks of C/C++ code you really do need tools like Purify, Insure++ or the open source valgrind for decent quality control to detect memory leaks, dangling pointers etc etc. No such need with Java.
Would have to be out of your mind in suggesting to re-orient a project from Java to C/C++ today. There is much better. Read above references.
The Beyond Java book presents nothing that can be used NOW in a professional, production environment and does not represent a realistic alternative to Java for IB.
My poor Puffy, Start with reading section 1.1 of "Beyond Java": 1.1. Ignorance as a Virtue After this, Bruce will explain to you how unmananageble IT situations could develop in given Java projects. I don't know wheter IB is going to be reassured by your wisecrack. I think that Bruce Tate (and many others) have some rather very interesting points to make in this book. (Some saw the light already some time ago and grew very rich following the right path. ) hph nononsense