Speakers Rick Saletta (Rick Saletta) and Rick Cattell (Rick Cattell)

Moderator Edward Ort (MDR-edO)

This is a moderated forum.

MDR-edO: Welcome to Java Live! Today's topic is Java^TM 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE). Our guests are Rick Saletta, J2EE product line manager, and Rick Cattell, J2EE architect. They'll answer your J2EE questions. So let's begin. Who has the first question?

BradT: Is it true that J2EE was such a good design and so self explanatory that no one has a question about it?

Rick Saletta: I certainly hope so. Now we are moving to the next level with our BluePrints program.

gv: What is SUN' roles in making J2EE a standard ?

Rick Cattell: Sun is the overall specification lead for the J2EE platform, which in turn includes a number of other specifications: JDBC^TM, JavaServer Pages^TM (JSP), Enterprise JavaBeans^TM (EJB), Java Naming and Directory Interface^TM (JNDI), and so on. Our job is to build industry consensus around the platform so that there will be many implementations... from IBM, Oracle, Sun, BEA, and so on. We have found the Java Community Process (JCP) an effective way to do that.

Rick Saletta: Are there areas where you would like to see us create more examples for developers?

Bob Dixon: What is time frame for J2EE Compatibility Test Suite?

Rick Saletta: The CTS - Compatibility test Suite - was released in December'99 (on time) and is now available to licensees.

telmo: Hello all! My question goes to the ability of the J2EE platform to talk to native C++ code. How can I access it? Through EJB? CORBA? How about callbacks to clients? Can you elaborate? Thank you.

Rick Cattell:You can invoke C++ code through the Java^TM Native Interface capability or through CORBA. CORBA would probably be the recommended approach since it offers more flexibility, and we have designed J2EE to work well with CORBA in passing context.

adasbudget: what are the advantages/disadvantages associated with J2EE vx COM+. Why not just use COM+?

Rick Saletta: The advantages to J2EE over Com+ are numerous. With J2EE you have Simplified Enterprise Development through re-usable components such as EJBs and JSPs. With J2EE you get industrial-strength scalability strong enough to develop solutions for online investment banks, auction houses and stock markets. You can leverage your existing investments through simplified, open connectivity APIs such as JDBC. You have freedom of choice to develop, integrate and deploy best of breed solutions rapidly. This is a result of the competitive, compatible marketplace, which we are building for J2EE solution, application and component providers. You also have teh benefit of cross=platform portability ie write once run aywhere on the server. What are the advantages to COM+?

dp: Examples that demonstrate an architecture of J2EE technologies would be nice.

Rick Cattell: Yes, examples are really important to help people understand J2EE! An excellent source of J2EE application examples and accompanying J2EE discussion is on J2EE. Click on "BluePrints^TM" on the left side. You will find several hundred pages of examples, programming models, and style suggestions there.

Dana: Are there plans in the works to make J2EE available for Windows '98?

Rick Saletta: Dana, why yes there are :) We are currently working on a schedule to deliver a win98 release by JavaOne^SM.

Gary V Are any documents available (or is Sun working on) that specifically address cross implemenation portability?

Telemakos: Are there any plans to make th J2EE available for Mac OS9 or OSX?

Rick Saletta: Telemako, I too am a Mac user and would love to see Apple take a greater interest in Java programming. However, we have no plans at this time. J2EE is a platform for applications which are distributed across servers. Apple does not seem to be focusing in this space. Perhaps you could prod them.

Rick Cattell: The main idea of J2EE is to provide cross-implementation portability. For example, the Compatibility Test Suite is designed to make sure that different J2EE implementations will run the same applications. The J2EE Specification and accompanying API specification demand specific functionality you can depend on cross-platform. Did that answer your question or did I misunderstand? venki: Is there any J2EE compliant server available on the market?

Rick Saletta: To have a compatible branded solution the vendor must pass all of the compatibility tests. Since we just released the CTS in December, it will probably be a short time until the vendors roll out their solutions. Look for announcements around JavaOne if not sooner.

gv: What is the time frame for the EJB 2.0 spec ?

Rick Cattell: The EJB 2.0 specification is now well along in development in the expert group (Linda DeMichiel is specification lead for that). We don't have a definite date for completion, since that depends on comments and consensus in the expert group and in the industry. It also depends on where we make a "cut off" for a next release of J2EE. However I hope that some kind of draft will be out by JavaOne later this year. JMS integration, connectors, and further specification of persistence are the most important features we plan in the 2.0 release. We'll also have various clarifications and fixes based on partner implementation feedback.

Jeff Hitz: Can you recommend the best sources, both commercial and non-commercial, for pre-designed, pre-tested, re-usable components such as EJBs and JSPs?

Rick Saletta: Jeff Hit, first check out the Java Pet Store Demo which we have posted at http://java.sun.com/J2EE. The demo is downloadable freeware from the team. It is a complete web store implementation with J2EE. You can take it and modify it to your liking and deploy the Pet Store, turning it into whatever kind of store you choose. Also, I believe flashline.com has a component repository. BlueStone also has some stuff avaialbe to developers.

Dana: I'm a bit unclear as to how J2EE differs from just writing a servlet to work with a JavaBean or JSP. Is the difference in the deployer tool, instead of hardcoding so components can find each other, or is there more to it than that?

Rick Cattell: J2EE goes beyond what suggest primarily in defining a COMPLETE environment you can code to and depend on. It also simplifies your development. For example, EJBs automatically handle transaction and security calls. So you can write a servlet or JavaServer Page that accesses an EJB (Enterprise Java Bean), and depend on that working on everyone's J2EE product. You can also count on a J2EE product supporting JDBC, JNDI, RMI/IIOP, and so on... It's a whole platform you can write applications to.

Jesse: Regarding licencing, how much will it cost to run J2EE in production?

Rick Saletta: If you would like to become a J2EE licensee, information is posted at J2EE in the lefthand column under "Licensing."

Jesse: How about an example using the Turbine framework?

Rick Saletta: Jesse, what is the Turbine framework?

dp: For example, I am starting a project using enterprise technologies to manage transactions between distributed systems. One such system is for managing customer data, the other order data. There is currently no transactional model that enables an ecommerce site to generate an order in one system, updating the customer history data in the other. I'd like to explore using EJB and it's transactional capability for that.

MDR-edO: The transactional model that allows distributed commit in J2EE is JTA (see java.sun.com/products/jta). You can use JTA.

Jesse: I have been using Weblogic for some time now, which does EJB's, JSP's, servlets, etc. I'm sure it will be J2EE compliant soon. My question is: will Sun support J2EE as a product and can I safely use it in production in the near future?

Rick Saletta: Jesse, I certainly hope that weblogic is compatible soon aslo. There are tremendous benefits to the Java Compatible Enterprise Edition Brand which you should demand from your vendor. J2EE is not a product, it is a platform. The products will be delivered by our partners such as weblogic, bluestone and iplanet. The J2EE reference implentation is intended as an aid to developers but is not intended to compete as a product, only as a reference. Sun has given complete support to J2EE branded solutions will be available in the near future. Ask your vendor how soon they will be branding their products?

JDC: Excuse me if this has already been asked (I just connected), but has anyone tried to use the J2EE SDK with Linux? Is there a way to get one of them to work or should we wait?

Rick Saletta: We are planning a J2EE release on LINUX this year and hope to make an announcement regarding this topic in the near future. Tune in next week to chat with Blake COnnell, the J2SE product manager out this topic.

Gary V I understand the general J2EE portability concepts. But, for example, I've been reading the JMS spec and there are a number of places where the spec is loosly constrained (for example, topic heirrarchies). Having a J2EE coding standards document (for example, don't depend on topic hier) seems like it would be usefull. Thanks!

Rick Cat: Yes, there are a few things that are not fully specified in J2EE. JMS is not mandatory until the next J2EE release, at which time we expect it to be more precisely specified. Entity beans were optional in EJB 1.0 and are now mandatory. It is the intent of the Compatibility Test Suite to make sure you can depend on the mandatory features, and it is the intent of the J2EE Specification to close any open feature questions like this (in some cases, for example with JDBC, the J2EE specification add further constraints and preciseness on top of the underlying API). If there is any impreciseness, let us know... We'd like to fix it!

ghg: The J2EE blueprint is B2C model, do you have plan to supply kind of B2B model?

Rick Saletta: In our first blueprint, we wanted to show how J2EE works with a number of different client scenarios. I am now taking feedback as to what developers would like to see next. Do you have something B2B in mind? I encourage you to goto the J2EE web page and sign up for the Blueprints (APM) interest and feedback lists.

|]akkon: When class files are recompiled, the server must be restarted. Will this issue be addressed any time soon?

Rick Cat: I'm not sure why someone couldn't ship a J2EE product implementation that allows you to change, recompile, and reload Java classes without restarting the server? Are you having problems with a specific vendor's product on this or with our J2EE reference implementation?

Magnus Stenman: When do you think we will see the "FCS" of the Duke Petstore (JPS 1.0)?

Rick Saletta: We have incorporated a lot of developer feedback and are working on the final editorial release, ie FCS, of the BluePrints book Designing Entprise Applications (which is accompanied by the pet store). The book will be available as part of the Java Series from Addison Wesley and as part of the Sun BluePrints series from Prentice Hall.

gv: Will SUN work on a specification for connectors for EAI ??

gv: When does the JSP 1.1 spec support become available in the Java Web Server^TM?

Rick Saletta: We've given our JSP code to the Apache project. You might look there.

Rick Cat: Yes, a very high priority in J2EE. Next is connectors. Probably the highest priority, since EAI is very important and connectors are our way to simplify that. Rahul Sharma is the specification lead on connectors, and it is well along with his expert group. I'm pretty sure that will be public by JavaOne.

telmo: Is J2EE suitable to be used when the data flow is not generated as a response to a client request? For instance, can i have things as alarms sent dinamicaly to a clients applet?

Rick Cat: Yes, you can spontaneously generate alarms or messages from a J2EE server. Not everything must be generated from a client request. JMS, for example, is a way for EJBs to do "push" messaging to notify each other of events in a distributed network. This is in contrast to RMI/IIOP which is generally a "call and wait for response" model.

Matt: Where can we sign up for the BluePrints^TM interest and feedback lists? I'm having trouble finding it?

Rick Saletta: Information to sign up for the BluePrints lists and for the J2EE lists is available at Sun BluePrints^TM

MDR-edO: Well our chat time has quickly drawn to a close. I want to thank all our participants for a stimulating set of question. And special thanks to our guests Rick Saletta and Rick Cattell.

Rick Saletta: I'd like to thank each of you for participating and encourage you to download and use the free Java Pet Store Demo and to sign up for the interest lists and the feedback lists at http://java.sun.com/J2EE. Your feedback is very important to us. Rick Saletta over and out.

Rick Cat: Goodbye! We had some questions we didn't get to... hopefully we can do this again soon, or you can send questions through our J2EE web site pages.

MDR-edO: Last moderator (me) signing off. The forum is now unmoderated

Forum closed at Tue Feb 1 15:32:33 2000

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