>From: Barzilai Spinak <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Subject: [jdjlist] J2EE, Tomcat, JBoss, etc. > >Hi everbody. >After several attempts to learn J2EE , I'm finally reading the "J2EE >Tutorial" from Sun's site.
Would be a good place to start. :) >I hope the Tutorial is the best way to start. I downloaded the J2EE SDK >which -- I understood -- has everything >you need to develop, deploy, run, etc. but is not intended for commercial >use... is that correct? That's correct. I personally advocate learning what you need to use first, instead of following a tutorial step-by-step - since learning what you need to use will make sure you have the basics as well. However, I'm sure not everyone learns the way I do, so ... >I used Tomcat a little over a year ago to develop a couple of test JSP (I >read a whole book on JSP and Servlets so I know >some stuff already) and recently found out about JBoss which seems to be >getting pretty popular.... >The problem is that I dont completely understand how all these relate. > >From JBoss' site: "JBoss is an Open Source, standards-compliant, >application server..." >From Tomcat's site: "Tomcat is the servlet container that is used in the >official Reference Implementation for the Java Servlet and JavaServer Pages >technologies" > >What exactly is an application server and why Tomcat isn't one? Or is it? An Application server includes implementations of many, if not all, of the J2EE specifications. That means an app server will include mechanisms for executing servlets and JSPs, as well as having a JNDI and JMS containers, in addition to supporting EJBs, JavaMail, etc. etc. etc. Tomcat is, as their site suggests, a servlet container. It comes with a JNDI container, although its quality is suspect IMHO, and Tomcat itself has serious issues in its default configuration. (Slashdot has a thread on this, from a month or so ago, covering issues and relevant links.) JBoss, on the other hand, supports many servlet containers (Tomcat and Jetty are the ones supported out of the box), EJB, JMS, etc. etc. etc. Thus, JBoss is an app server, and Tomcat is a servlet container. >Are they two different kinds of animals? Yes. >Do they complement each other? No. One supercedes the others; a servlet container is part of an app server. >Do they compete against each other? No. >Do they overlap in some areas but not in others?? No, although many servlet containers include JNDI containers, since JNDI is a fundamental aspect of using J2EE resources. >What should I use? My platform is RedHat 7.3/Apache1.3.23 >So far I'm just learning and following the examples in the book using Sun's >implementation, but after that what?? After that: use what you understand. JBoss is a good app server, IMHO, although configuration is "more than is necessary" if you ask me. Tomcat is a, um, decent reference although I find it had oddities that are discouraging, and its performance could be better. I'm biased in favour of Orion (http://orionserver.com) myself, because installation and configuration make sense (Orion takes about thirty seconds to configure and run, after download). JBoss is a touch more current in spec compliance, though, although that's likely to change in a few months. >I'm also playing with JBuilder which I think will be my next Java IDE. >JBuilder installs a couple of versions of Tomcat. >I'm only talking about Tomcat and JBoss because they are the two free >options I know of. Free... you get what you pay for. Tomcat's worth every penny. JBoss is worth more than what you pay for. Many app servers have "free for development" licenses. >Well, in sum, the whole J2EE thing is too confusing because there are too >many points and aspects of it. Nah - it's meant to support the enterprise. Think about it from the enterprise's perspective and you'll be fine. ----------------------------------------------- Joseph B. Ottinger [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://enigmastation.com IT Consultant _________________________________________________________________ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com To change your JDJList options, please visit: http://www.sys-con.com/java/list.cfm
