Perhaps you have lot of experience working with EJB on a large project, but
I beg to differ with much of what you said.
I'm not a great fan of MS, but you can compare what's happening with EJB
with MFC. At least with MFC, you were given a set of library classes that
performed crucial work for you and the code was available. If something
goes wrong, you debug the framework code along with your code.
Also, until you complete your test in your development environment, you
don't have to build an installation of your application. EJB's deployment
requirement is like requiring people to build installation disk. And, you
must install the system to have the other half the system be generated. How
can you call this productive or conducive to iterative development?
My complaint with EJB is that much of "what the system does for you" is
generated during deployment time and is hidden away from the developer.
This is certainly the case with Sun's reference EJB server implementation
which I've been working with. Perhaps it's a bit better with open source
stuff like JBOSS. But the fact remains: deployment/installation must be
done before you can test your modules with the rest of the system. The
other half ("better half") doesn't even come into existence until you
deploy.
>compiling/deployment for you. And depending on how you design your
>application you often time don't have to redeploy your beans at all unless
>some major interface changes. It could also be that you are not unit
>testing
>your code enough. If you are waiting to discover bugs only when you deploy
>your stuff I think it's a little too late to complain.
How do I unit test a CMP bean before it's deployed? Could you share some
concrete ideas based on your experience, instead of empty talk?
>From: "Tinou Bao" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>To: "Hu Shih" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: Re: [EJB-INT] EJB Development Cycle
>Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 15:44:54 -0500
>
>I don't think you can simply blame EJBs for your development aches. EJBs
>provide you with several features, such as security, transaction,
>persistence, distributed. Naturally the container needs to generate classes
>to do this work for you. Otherwise you'll endup writing this code for
>yourself. So, do you want to have a lot of classes generated by the
>container or a lot of classes your developers code? If you don't need these
>features then don't use EJBs. Regarding deployment time. Yes, EJBs require
>an extra step but this should in general not cause you all the pains you
>speak of. You can write scripts that pretty much does all the
>compiling/deployment for you. And depending on how you design your
>application you often time don't have to redeploy your beans at all unless
>some major interface changes. It could also be that you are not unit
>testing
>your code enough. If you are waiting to discover bugs only when you deploy
>your stuff I think it's a little too late to complain.
>
>_________________________________________
>
>Tinou Bao
>BAO Systems
>Chairman of the Board and Chief Software Architect
>www.baosys.com
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Hu Shih" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Sent: Wednesday, January 30, 2002 10:08 AM
>Subject: [EJB-INT] EJB Development Cycle
>
>
> > Please forgive my frustrated tone, but
> >
> > I've been working with EJB (CMP beans with session facades) using Sun's
> > J2SDKEE. I find the development cycle extremely tiring and slow. I
>write
> > bean code. I go to their deploytool to deploy it. I run the thing.
>Find
> > problems and come back to my development environment.
> >
> > I understand some IDEs will make this cycle easier. Still, I've been
>used
> > to developing and testing code quickly in an iterative cycle. After
>many
>of
> > these iterations, I deploy to user environment--many
>code/compile/test-runs,
> > very few deployments.
> >
> > One of the big advantages of a quasi-intrepretive language like Java is
> > precisely that the repetitive code/compile/test-run cycle is quick.
> >
> > EJB changed all this. They stuck a rather long, tedious, and often
>painful
> > deployment phase right between compile and test-run, often breaking the
> > development cycle with 10 to 20 minute breaks.
> >
> > Debugging such a deployed app is a nightmare. Because EJB (especially
>CMP)
> > generate so many classes and because so many of these are system
>generated
> > stuff, I have very little idea what's going on or what I have done
>wrong.
> >
> > Also, so much information that are important to developers are hidden
>away
> > from them in multi-level jars/ears/wars, etc. (and these things are
> > humongous). And, why so many classes? When running, I see over 4
>classes
> > generated for each EJB bean. This is excess and debugging nightmare!
> >
> > With Java, the trickiest configuration parameter was CLASSPATH. With
>EJB,
>I
> > have to know and worry about so many of these configurations, I feel
>like
>I
> > need a dictionary of them.
> >
> > What's going on? It's almost as though EJB put Java back to the level
>of
> > C++ and C++ templates. I don't know about others, but I generalize
>dislike
> > and dispise the condescending attitude of any system that tells
>developers:
> > "Don't worry. We'll take care of you by generating lots of stuff under
>the
> > covers. Why would you care about long breaks in the development cycle?
>Go
> > take a coffee break."
> >
> > Developers are an impatient and controlling bunch. Java has been good
> > because it gives speed of development and gives enough control for
> > developers. In my opinion, EJB is going backwards (the wrong
>direction).
> > Is there an effort to address these? Or, is it that to be an EJB
>developer,
> > you have to take all this willingly and gladly?
> >
> >
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