Not at all. Let me describe my project: I'm taking an existing application and replacing the current DAO layer to use web-services. This DAO layer is used by our web front-end (yes, using Struts), a standalone Java application, and a web-start application. The same code is working just fine in each of these apps, accessing Axis on the webserver.
So, I don't think the choice to use web-services should have a major impact on your decision to proceed. Replacing applets with HTML pages is what I would be looking closely at. HTML forms are fine for many, but certainly not all, applications. Can you reasonably re-implement the current functionality using HTML/JSP/Struts? In an acceptable amount of time? Good luck, Russ -----Original Message----- From: Galbreath, Mark A [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, May 14, 2004 4:06 PM To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]' Subject: RE: Project from hell? so...you feel my pain.... My idea is to remove the applet functionality to a Struts framework. The framework would handle the back-and-forth between the client and the Web service. Am I being too simplistic? Personally, I think I have been given an impossible task. Mark -----Original Message----- From: Dennis Sosnoski [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, May 14, 2004 3:54 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Project from hell? Galbreath, Mark A wrote: >EXACTOMUDO! :-( > >-----Original Message----- >From: Sherman, Dennis (END-CHI) [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] >Sent: Friday, May 14, 2004 9:12 AM > >Your task sounds to me suspiciously like someone at an executive level >having heard about web services, and thinking they've found the silver >bullet to all their problems. > > Then you've got two choices I'd see as reasonable. The first is to use an actual web service, with the clients converted from applets to standalone applications (perhaps deployed using JWS, a great solution). You could use JMS or SMTP for the actual web services, to get the queuing advantages you said were important. This should let you preserve much of the UI and avoid a total rewrite. The second alternative is to either modify your existing applet-based code or design a pure HTML approach that talks to servlets, with the servlets implementing queuing behind the scenes. I don't know how much this would help with your basic problems, though. Using an applet based frontend for web services is possible, but really only makes sense if you've already got a web service that you just want to access from the applet - I really wouldn't recommend this as an up-front design. - Dennis -- Dennis M. Sosnoski Enterprise Java, XML, and Web Services Training and Consulting http://www.sosnoski.com Redmond, WA 425.885.7197
