I must say that I'm also extremely disappointed with Axis and
this usergroup. I didn't like the fact that you have to sign up to
receive ALL emails in order to participate -- I've never seen this
before. So because I was in a jam and needed and answer, I joined and
asked my question. I posted the question 5 times in different forms over
a 3 week period and didn't get one response -- nothing.
So I then tried to unsubscribe and it didn't work. I followed
the instructions in the auto-reply given for troubleshooting
unsubscribes and that didn't work. So I emailed the administrator (his
email was in the autoreply, but of course nowhere to be found on the
axis site) and got a reply about 3 days later telling me that the reason
that my unsubscribe didn't work was because my email address was not on
the list. So I responded assuring him that I am still on the list and am
getting hundreds of messages a week (to my work email mind you) and I
added a copy of the email header of one of the list emails I received
with my email return path etc. -- I got no response. Also since the
sender in the list emails is not axis-user@ws.apache.org but instead the
individual senders address, I can't even mark them as spam to filter
them (not a very smart setup, not to mention the privacy issues). This
is becoming a real nuisance and it appears that I have no recourse. I've
tried emailing the general Apache help and got no response, and of
course there is not a single phone number on the either the apache or
axis web sites.
This is bush league support. No wonder so many people prefer to
use Microsoft products. Maybe not all of their solutions are optimal
(although I'm not sure how true this is anymore) but everything is much
easier to implement, and interconnect with different technologies under
the Microsoft umbrella. And when you have a problem, the support sites
available are much superior -- I've never posted an issue about a
microsoft product where I didn't have it solved within a day or two. The
open source concept is great when you're a student and can't afford to
fork over a grand or two for software, but when you use it for business
apps and factor in the time to implement and the extra tens of thousands
of dollars in man hours per year to fix bugs, Microsoft is a much
cheaper solution.
I would be extremely grateful to anyone to can tell me how to get off of
this list. Thank you.
Cheers,
Jeff.
-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Grillo [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Friday, October 28, 2005 10:15 AM
To: axis-user@ws.apache.org
Cc: axis-dev@ws.apache.org
Subject: RE: I give up
I would like to add that, to a large extent, I feel Kurt's pain. We
used Axis 1.2 to deploy a single SOAP service that was required of us by
one of our major partners that dictated a .NET interface complete with
SOAP element signature, timestamp, and encryption. I will say that we
got this working very nicely. I am appreciative of the work. I will
say that my interactions with the WSS4J folks was extremely helpful, and
I thank them very much. So, that is a great success and I thank
everybody that contributed.
Now as I look to go a little more mainstream within the rest of our
products at our company, I began taking a closer look at Axis, including
java data binding dependencies which are critical because of the various
products our company produces that will need to adhere to the bound XSD
Objects. I need to insure that I have some independence when choosing
this piece of the puzzle.
I have looked at AXIS and AXIS2. I have had a few questions related to
this. My major frustration is as my inability to get answers to what I
thought were fairly simple questions. Perhaps they are either not
simple, or thought as stupid. I'm not talking just about zeroing in on
a bug and submitting it to JIRA, I'm talking about some input about even
"whether" something is doable, not just how.
Now before anybody comes down on me, I am fully aware of where my
expectations should be vis a vis open source software, mailing lists,
etc. I do not feel that I am owed anything when using this software. I
have found, however, a little more help in other areas when using open
source. I have, in fact, solved a myriad of problems on my own within
Axis. I find myself in the bowels of the code trying to figure out what
it's doing etc, so to solve my own problems. I do, however, have to
factor in the time spent to research and solve these issues.
I have posted several questions and generally do not even get a
response, or an I don't know, though I suppose the lack of a response is
an I don't know. So, it's gotten to the point where I don't bother. In
terms of Axis, I feel that I need to go in another direction simply
because of my inability to get a straight answer around data binding
support (for example) now or in the future in Axis or in Axis2. I have
asked what I believe is a simple question, whether a particular class
that seems like it should be thread safe is so (just another example).
Generally speaking if somebody asked me about most any class I've
designed and built as to whether it was designed that way, I could come
up with an answer. Yet, no answer. Yes, yes, if a class is not
advertised as Threadsafe, consider that it isn't. Lack of
documentation, however, doesn't confirm the default assumption.
But my bigger concern is the unknown. I don't have confidence that when
and if I run into future problems I can find the resources or help to
get around problems. Perhaps my expectations are much too high. Of
other products that we use and have had very good success is Hibernate,
Castor, WSS4J (as mentioned above). I just don't get a comfortable
feeling when working with Axis ...
Okay, I'm big enough for somebody to tell me to not let the door hit me
in the you know where as I leave. Again, I'm not angry, I'm not even
largely disappointed. I've just been forced to make a decision based on
what is...
Perhaps in awhile I'll return to see what's up with Axis2.
-paul
-----Original Message-----
From: Davanum Srinivas [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Thursday, October 27, 2005 11:07 PM
To: axis-user@ws.apache.org
Cc: axis-dev@ws.apache.org
Subject: Re: I give up
Kurt,
Looking at your postings, i don't see much from you in terms of engaging
the user or developer community to ask for help.
http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=axis-dev&w=2&r=1&s=olsen&q=b
http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=axis-user&w=2&r=1&s=olsen&q=b
Your specific email to Tom
(http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=axis-dev&m=112801670512125&w=2)...i
have no clue how to help. i did reply back to a prev mail on that thread
(http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=axis-dev&m=112692662128194&w=2)
If you have a problem with Macromedia or eBay folks, We can't really
help. If you have a problem with latest releases of Axis, we can help if
you add JIRA bugs (and chase us!) on the axis-dev@ list. If you need
production/development support, there are avenues for that as well.
Am sorry you had a bad experience, thanks for the feedback.
-- dims
On 10/27/05, Kurt Olsen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>
>
> Folks, I hate to say it but I had to ditch axis. Way too difficult.
And we
> won't be using it in the future.
>
>
>
> Our application has approx 30 vendors we communicate with using SOAP.
>
> Approx 25 of them are implemented by simply creating strings and
firing them
> off, then parsing out the reply.
>
> Primitive but fairly easy to do.
>
>
>
> The other 5 used axis. At the moment we're using the ColdFusion
server. When
> we upgraded to java 5 and coldfusion mx7 our axis based connectors
broke.
>
> It took approximately 2 weeks to diagnose and 'solve' the problem.
Axis used
> commons-logging, and commons-logging broke. That required fairly
>
> major surgery to the coldfusion classpath. Pieces of commons-logging
we're
> coming in off of different classloaders.
>
>
>
> So technically speaking, commons-logging broke - not axis
but.....since axis
> brought the flaw to life, and has given us grief (probably the CF
> integration) in the past, it is axis that got the bad reputation due
to the
> fact that it was at the top of the food chain. The two weeks solving
this
> problem wasn't totally wasted because it exposed a fairly large flaw
in the
> overall architecture.
>
>
>
> After getting the existing connectors to work again, I had to turn my
> attention to the next connector in the pipeline - eBay via Soap....
>
> Only one problem - eBay's sdk is written against java 1.4 and axis 1.1
-
> while we upgraded to java 5 and axis 1.2
>
> After another week of trying various 'workarounds' etc I was forced to
give
> up and will have to communicate with eBay using the "create strings"
> technique.
>
>
>
> Bottom line is that the overall cost of the 'SOAP' system and it's
co-horts
> in crime is un-managable given our quarterly release cycle.
>
> I'm disappointed that after all that effor to modernize - the goal
really
> wasn't accomplished.
>
>
>
> I fully understand the various issues involved, most of which aren't
really
> axis's fault but - any way I slice it this entire exercise felt
exactly like
> trying to use the J2EE 1.3/1.4 ejb specifications. Big, confusing,
hard to
> use etc.....And I predict will eventually be abandoned (or at least
buried
> beneath a convienence API).
>
>
>
> This is just one co's experience of course but I submit to you that as
you
> continue your development you might want to consider the overall
'cost' that
> SOAP and it's tools are exacting on the community. This simply has to
get
> easier because as it stands both the other developers (who watched
over my
> shoulder so to speak) and myself have simply given up on an 'easy'
tool fix.
> Our experience is that SOAP is a diaster and costing virtually
everyone in
> corporate programming a lot of money and lost sleep....
>
>
>
> Thanks for listening, and please remember that I'm taking the time to
write
> this not to complain (well, maybe a little) but to provide feedback
from the
> field.
>
>
>
> Respectfully,
>
> Kurt Olsen
>
>
>
>
>
>
--
Davanum Srinivas : http://wso2.com/blogs/
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