Reporting In Java (Dec 2005), disappoints?

Lately I have been writing from a realistic viewpoint of the Java world. I am glad that I am not the only person with this viewpiont. Over at SDTimes, Allen Holub has written in his column "JasperReports Disappoints" about the state of JasperReports, the leading Java reporting framework. I think he has hit it on the money. Have you ever worked with JasperReports? If not, then you are in for a ride. It appears that is what Allen Holub has been on the past week.

Reporting should not be as complicated as it is when using JasperReports. I've worked with many reporting tools over the years and in most cases they are not very overly complicated to use and learn. At least in the universe outside of Java.

The JasperReports framework is yet another XML intense, finely grained, but robust (from an OO perspective) Java implementation. Don't get me wrong, it does work as designed. However, I am glad I did not spend the US$50 on the documentation ("The JasperReports Ultimate Guide"). According to what Allen Holub has seen, it is not worth it.

He goes into describing the usual state of open-source development that requires you spend a lot of time researching, coding, testing, trying, failing, until you get it working method. I would have to agree. Over the past few years, I have been living in the open source Java world and it is pretty much exactly as Holub describes. At least that is my experience. I have purchased many books on Java and some are good and some are bad. They are all relevant. It all just depends on what you are looking for and whether or not you have the time to make it work.

Well, I am glad that at least I got involved in JasperReports and am not the only Java developer encountering issues with it. Maybe someone else will do it better but for now it looks like JasperReports represents the best of reporting in Java for 2005. You get what you pay for and being open source, I can't complain too much.