EJB versus RPG/COBOL

 >> Performance in this realm is almost always good enough

Not my experience David.

I am currently working with three different customers who decided that Java
should "do it all" and have now reversed that thinking.  The performance was
completely unacceptable.  Now they are making use of RPG where it makes
sense.

In the case of the original questioner, he has stated that there is an
existing application and therefore the potential for reuse of some of the
business rules imbedded in the code.

I agree completely with Joe - use the right tool for the job.  I remain
unconvinced that a language that does not understand (at the native level)
that business numbers contain decimal places can ever provide the kind of
performance that I need to crunch receivables, payables, inventory, etc.
Agreed one can throw more hardware at it, but I'm also seeing signs that the
ease-of-maintenance of Java applications is not significantly better than
well written RPG/COBOL.

Jon Paris
Partner400