At 08:12 AM 06/02/2000 -0500, you wrote:
>Complience is the first area then to offer our help. Anything we can task
>to do?
For a first step, you could go through the EBJ 1.1 spec and come up with a
list of requirements placed on the container. Then we can figure out which
ones jBoss meets and which ones it doesn't. I'll start -- I'll do chapter 3
right now.
I suspect that some of the folks in this group already have most of the
information we need; it's just a matter of ferreting it out, reviewing it
and putting it on jboss.org where everybody can see it.
Here's the list of requirements from Chapter 3. Notice how I gave each
requirement a unique name consisting of the section it came from and a
unique title identifying the requirement, so developers can talk about it
with a shorthand notation. This is helpful in requirements analysis and
traceability.
3.1.5 1st bullet
The EJB Container Provider (Container Provider for short) provides
� The deployment tools necessary for the deployment of enterprise beans.
3.1.5 2nd bullet
� The runtime support for the deployed enterprise beans� instances.
3.1.5 manageable server platform
The Container runtime provides the deployed enterprise beans with
transaction and security management, network distribution of clients,
scalable management of resources, and other services that are generally
required as part of a manageable server platform.
3.1.5 Enterprise JavaBeans component contract
The Container Provider insulates the enterprise Bean from the specifics of
an underlying EJB Server by providing a simple, standard API between the
enterprise Bean and the container. This API is the Enterprise JavaBeans
component contract.
3.1.5 responsible for persistence
For Entity Beans with container-managed persistence, the entity container
is responsible for persistence of the Entity Beans installed in the
container. The Container Provider�s tools are used to generate code that
moves data between the enterprise Bean�s instance variables and a database
or an existing application.
3.1.5 versioning
The Container Provider typically provides support for versioning the
installed enterprise Bean compo-nents. For example, the Container Provider
may allow enterprise Bean classes to be upgraded without invalidating
existing clients or losing existing enterprise Bean objects.
3.1.5 monitor and manage
The Container Provider typically provides tools that allow the system
administrator to monitor and manage the container and the Beans running in
the container at runtime.
Now we could go through these requirements, describe how it's being met or
not supported, and give jBoss a rating, like 0=not supported, 1=half-assed,
2=mooning, 3=kick-ass. And later, we could make a chart like this including
jBoss competitors, creating the EJB Container Ass-Kicking Chart. (Or we
could be boring and give out stars like everyone else.)
If you're a jBoss developer, this chart could show where we still need to
work out a few details. If you have a boss, this could be used to justify
why you think jBoss is great, apart from the coolness factor. If you are
the boss, this could be used to make you feel better about investing
man-hours in Open Source vs. dollars in commercial software.
-- Ken Jenks, http://abiblion.com/
Tools for reading.
