It isn't necessarily a bad thing -- it's basically static linking -- but the way it's done, it makes administration and troubleshooting a nightmare. As a platf

It isn't necessarily a bad thing -- it's basically static linking -- but the way it's done, it makes administration and troubleshooting a nightmare. As a platform, Java lacks the tools that a Unix sysadmin takes for granted. For example, with Debian or Ubuntu: What version of a library is installed, if any: dpkg -l What's the latest version available to be installed: apt-get update, apt-cache search Update the library for all applications that link it: apt-get upgrade These tools are important for administration, security, and troubleshooting. It mystifies me that Java developers and sysadmins managing Java servers don't demand them. Instead, they're willing to muck around in a web interface, go back to their dev box to look at Maven scripts, or go searching through the filesystem just to see what software is installed and running. Even if you're not averse to doing that by hand, how scriptable is it? If you have a large Java environment with many different services running on dozens or hundreds of boxes, how do you get a report of which boxes have a particular version of a library installed? I know our sysadmins don't know how, and I know our Java developers don't care. They could develop the tools themselves, but they have no interest. The sysadmins do not do web pages; they are not going to spend all day going click-click-click to update a few dozen servers. They have told the Java developers not to expect the same level of support for their applications as our C++ programmers get because Java is an unmanageable platform, and the developers don't care. I really, really do not understand why our Java programmers are not writing scripts to automate any of these basic tasks.