I've been working with EJB for almost a year now.
However, during this time, I've not seen any improvements, or even an
attempt to make the CMP more sophisticated- at least by my friendly
neighborhood App Server (Vendor)- (BEA)WebLogic. All I've seen is WebLogic
pitching TopLink, or others pitching CocoBase. All these are OR-Mapping
tools.
What I'd like to see is EJB technology supporting sophisticated CMP
itself. I don't think the "use_an_OR_Mapping_tool" direction that some of us
are being forced to adopt is right.
One of the main reasons why WebLogic got widespread acceptance and major
marketshare is because it was first in many aspects, most important of which
was Entity Bean support when it was just optional.
It's too bad that over a year's experience hasn't transformed into
built-in support for CMP in WebLogic. For those of using WebLogic but NOT
using an OR-mapping tool for whatever reason, what this means is that we are
either forced to use BMP(sigh) for any non-trivial bean, or resort to
CMP-BMP combination hacks(yuck)!
I'll confess, I've done it myself.
The confession is made a little easier because I see a few others making
the same confession!
I'm just a small fry, and no authority on persistence, but I can see
that using CMP for anything that's non-trivial is, well, non-trivial! At
least for the unprivileged such as me, and the majority of EJB Developer's
out there who are using WebLogic. And perhaps even some of the other app
servers...?
Alright, now before some list-cop gives me a "ticket" for posting
Vendor-specific problem, let me ask this:
1. "How many App Servers out there have support for in-built,
non-trivial CMP? And how many force you to use some OR-mapping tool?"
2. "What about the issues in moving that CMP Bean code to another App
Server, sometime later?"
3. "Isn't it time the EJB Spec specified(no-pun intended:~) how CMP
should work so that we don't have to be bothered with using OR-mapping tools
or resort to the CMP-BMP hacks?"
4. "WHY IS SUN IGNORING MY FAVORITE APP SERVER VENDOR'S EMAILS?
Ahem..;) What I mean is, I've been told that the spec committee at Sun
has shown a noticable lack of cooperation on certain things with the App
Server vendors supporting EJB. This has led at least some really influential
people in this area to adopt the attitude that as long as valid input from
the developer community is constantly ignored, the spec writers at SUN
shouldn't specify that much. To quote my anonymous source: "EJB
Specification Writers should actively solicit and respect the input of the
container providers, as well as the CMP providers. You need a two way
street. Right now we have a wall".
Could this be because of the fact that Sun owns two different app servers
that compete head to head with the other App Server Vendors?
5. "How do the other App Server Vendors feel about this situation- and
"standard CMP" in particular?"
6. "How does the developer community feel about this situation- and
"standard CMP" in particular?"
EJB is the best thing that has ever happened to the anti-Microsoft world,
not just Java. Ultimately, the ONLY way we'll ever have a viable alternative
to Microsoft is by being united against them. I think spec is going in the
right direction overall. However, without *standard* CMP, it loses a lot of
it's value, IMHO.
I'll take the flames offline:->
Thanks,
- Murali Krishna Devarakonda
e: Murali AT EJBObject DOT com
w: 510-659-0680 x 12
h: 408-261-8796
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