Raible Designs

Tomcat 5

It sure would be nice to have a binary version of Tomcat 5. I tried building it this morning, and the process is still going - you have to download about 5 different libraries (so far) just to get it to build! I find this is typical with Jakarta project. Hopefully there will be one soon. I'll try to document the process so others don't have to experience my pain.

Later: Lance provides a link to the nightly build - exactly what I was looking for!

1 Hour Later: Tomcat 5 throws all kinds of errors when starting and doesn't load jsp-examples or servlet-examples correctly. For error details, check out my posting to the tomcat-dev mailing list.

Handling Time Consuming Requests

Domininic says, "I am try to find a good way to have an intermediate page load up while my Struts Action performs a large database query and then XSLT transformation." Ask and ye shall receive. I received the following e-mail from Alec Missine a while back. The attachment has a method of implementing a TCR. Let me know how it works as I haven't tried it myself.

----- Original Message -----
From: Alec Missine
To: [email protected]
Sent: Monday, January 07, 2002 3:59 PM
Subject: processing time consuming requests (was: wait page primer)


There's been some interest to the message I posted last month on the subject. The war file was too big though, so I compressed the stuff as much as I could. I also added some javadoc and UML diagrams.

The attached Struts-based application prototypes the wait page support for a time-consuming request (TCR). When a TCR (e.g., a database search) starts, the appropriate wait page is being sent to the browser after the request's ETC (Estimated Time to Complete) expires.

In the meantime, the corresponding action (the database search) is being started in the background thread on the server. If the default ETC is used (ad infinitum) or the action completes before the request's ETC expires, there is no wait page at all - the browser gets the result page right away, while the background thread is still busy closing the resources.

The wait page has javascript that polls the server to update the wait page with the TCR's progress. When the TCR completes, the wait page is being replaced with the appropriate result page.

This implementation has been tested on Apache Tomcat 4.0 with an Oracle 8.1.6 database as a data source. Presently, the application provides read-only access to all database tables for all database schemas through extensive use of the java.sql.DatabaseMetaData object. The next release will support insert/update/delete functionality.

Alec

Attachments: tcr.zip (114 KB)

Hope this helps!

DevMX, J2EE 1.4, iBlog and OS X JDK 1.4.1

Mesh on MX told us about DevMX this morning:

I haven't looked at it yet, but it does look interesting, so this post is my own personal bookmark.

Erik tipped us off about the J2EE 1.4 Beta and some good J2EE vs. Petstore articles. After logging into download the 1.4 Beta, I found the feature list and figured I'd let you know:

The platform features complete Web services support through the new JAX-RPC 1.0 API, which supports service endpoints based on servlets and enterprise beans. JAX-RPC 1.0 provides interoperability with Web services based on the WSDL and SOAP protocols. The J2EE 1.4 platform also supports the Web Services for J2EE specification (JSR 109), which defines deployment requirements for Web services and utilizes the JAX-RPC programming model. The J2EE 1.4 platform introduces the J2EE Management 1.0 API, which defines the information model for J2EE management, including standard Management EJB (MEJB). The J2EE Management 1.0 API uses the Java Management Extensions (JMX) and supports standard management protocols, including SNMP, WBEM and CIM. The J2EE 1.4 platform also introduces the J2EE Deployment 1.1 API, which standardizes the deployment of J2EE applications.

The Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) includes enhancements to the Java Servlet and JavaServer Pages^TM (JSP^TM) technologies. Servlets now support request listeners and enhanced filters. JSP technology has simplified the page and extension development models with the introduction of a simple expression language, tag files, and a simpler tag extension API, among other features. The J2EE Connector Architecture provides incoming resource adapter and Java Message Service (JMS) pluggability. Enhancements to Enterprise JavaBeans^TM (EJB^TM) technology include Web service endpoints, a timer service, and enhancements to EJB QL and message driven beans. The J2EE 1.4 platform also includes enhancements to deployment descriptors, which are now defined using XML Schema.

Recent report on J2EE vs .NET Relies on "Highly Flawed Methodology" says BEA.
Benchmark Bust-Up: The Middleware Company Responds.

It looks like Rickard might be published in the next issue of JDJ.

"To Do" this weekend:

Download and see if iBlog works with Roller. Recommendation via Russell and Dave Winer. Hmmm, after looking at Dave's iBlog sites, it appears to be software to run a blog, not post to one. My I-don't-need-this filter has kicked into effect.

Download and install JDK 1.4.1 Developer Preview 5 for Mac OS X. Tip o' the hat to Erik. A needed update considering the last 1.4.1 release didn't even run Tomcat for me.

BEA, JAAS and JRockit.

The BEA meeting tonight was good - I saw a couple old friends and enjoyed the good microbrews they had on tap during the meeting. The first presentation (PPT) was on JAAS, was presented by Rich Helton and gave a good overview of what JAAS is. I realized that I will probably never use it directly because I specialize in writing web applications, and the servlet API uses JAAS under the covers (via JDBCRealms, etc.). Not a very exciting presentation, but neither is the topic.

The second presentation was on JRockit, which is BEA's JVM. It's basically a BEA version of the JDK, but supposedly 4 times faster than Sun's Hotspot. The best part about it (to me) is that it has a "Management Console." This allows you to control the garbage collection algorithm, trace performance on methods, and setup notifications for events. You can find more documentation on this here. A very cool app to say the least. BEA's goal with JRockit is to fill the gap that Microsoft left when it quit creating the JVM for Intel platforms.

So to say the least, I was sold leaving the meeting - I could solve my JDK 1.4 problems, increase the speed of my applications by 4 times, and all would be groovy. I rushed home, installed JRockit and found the following (testing the current application I'm working on):

Needless to say, I wasn't too impressed. Will I use it - sure, it seemed to be faster and my benchmarks above are simply me counting "1 1-thousand, 2 1-thousand..." The one thing I found disappointing was I couldn't get the jrockit.managementserver to start--even by adding -Djrockit.managementserver=true when starting Tomcat.

Macromedia Flash Remoting MX Released.

From theserverside.com:

Macromedia today announced Macromedia Flash Remoting MX for J2EE AppServers (and also for .NET). Flash Remoting MX allows you to connect any J2EE-backend (EJB's, JMX, Servlets, java classes) to new GUI written in Flash; it was already used to create a new Petstore GUI on top of the original Petstore EJB layer. [ press release ]

The interesting thing about this product is that it seems to be app-server agnostic. Here are the system requirements:

A 5.64 MB Download. It troubles me that it's a trial download though. That means that Macromedia is going to charge me if I ever want to use this. In other Macromedia news, they sent me an e-mail today asking me if I wanted to be a beta tester for HomeSite 5.2! My fingers are crossed for Java support.

StrutsTestCase 1.8 Released

I missed this one by a long shot (released 7.17.02), but I'll tell you anyway. StrutTestCase is a shortcut to using cactus to test your Struts Actions. Use it, it will descrease your development time.

I also am a little partial to this release since I helped Deryl get it working with LookupDispatchAction and Tiles. He did a great job in getting it all to work after I sent him the bugs. I had the easy job ;)

StrutsTestCase for JUnit - release 1.8
--------------------------------------

This release introduces improved support for Struts 1.1,
provides several requested enhancements, and fixes many
reported defects.

The StrutsTestCase library is now available as four distinct
releases supporting both the 2.2 and 2.3 versions of the 
Servlet specification, and both the 1.0.x and 1.1 versions
of the Struts Framework.

The StrutsTestCase library supports Struts 1.1b1 and the
latest nightly builds, as well as Cactus v1.3 and JUnit
v3.7.