Re: SWT & SOA Referrence Materials

    Hi Chad,

    In some sense, there is no difference between JSP and *standard* JSF.  I
say that because JSF uses JSP for creating and rendering views.

    The real difference, though, is that while JSP allows use of static and
dynamic elements, you still usually end up with a lot of code intermixed
with the markup ( usually HTML. )  JSF aims more at MVC, with components, a
component model and a request processing lifecycle.  In the typical case,
JSF is layered on top of JSP.

    There are problems, even though the latest JSP spec works to
relieve some of them.  See "Improving JSF by Dumping JSP" at:

http://www.onjava.com/pub/a/onjava/2004/06/09/jsf.html

    I've taken that advice to heart and have been using Facelets:

https://facelets.dev.java.net/

which pretty much lets the HTML be HTML ( you do have Facelets components as
tags and attributes ) and Java be code where it ought to be - in Java
classes.  Facelets is JSF with its own view renderer.  Another nice thing is
that you no longer have a JSP compile process.

    I think the main drawback to consider for a rich client ( Swing ) in
your case is the possibility of 2000 concurrent, long lasting JDBC
connections.  It makes sense for your 400 heads-down users, but could cause
some scaling problems for the entire group.  Connection pooling is the
normal answer, but there would be complications with remote clients.
However, that seems to be possible either via J2EE remote clients or COS
naming with JNDI.

    JSF allows pluggable renderers ( that's how Facelets works ) and, in a
perfect world, you could plug in a Swing renderer and use JSF for both thin
and rich clients.  Nobody's gotten around to that yet, publicly at least.

    Sounds like a fun project.  My one and only production COBOL program
emulated 3741 (?) diskette "punch", complete with verification mode, for
heads down staff, so I understand their issues.


                                                         Joe Sam

Joe Sam Shirah -        http://www.conceptgo.com
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----- Original Message ----- 
From: "cornelius, chad" <chad.cornelius@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "Java Programming on and around the iSeries / AS400"
<java400-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, September 05, 2006 10:56 AM
Subject: RE: SWT & SOA Referrence Materials


Thanks Joe Sam and Thorbjorn for you reply...

We need to build a client that will require about 2000 concurrent users of
which 400 are heads down users.  There is significant data entry so that is
why I am leaning towards a thick client.  It sounds like Swing may be a
better option then huh?  What is the difference between JSP's and
JavaServerFaces?  Also, is there an advantage to using one or the other?

Thanks guys for you input!
Chad

-----Original Message-----
From: java400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:java400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Thorbjørn Ravn Andersen
Sent: Tuesday, September 05, 2006 5:47 AM
To: Java Programming on and around the iSeries / AS400
Subject: Re: SWT & SOA Referrence Materials

cornelius, chad skrev  den 04-09-2006 05:21:

Do any of you have some recommendations on good reading material for
learning SWT and SOA?  Also, would anyone recommend SWING over SWT?  I
do not know much about either except that SWT can take advantage of
platform specific functionality

What scenario are you addressing?

If it is building a client talking to a server, you should be able to go
quite a way with a browser (i.e. a web client).  If you need heavy
processing in the client, then write a Java application and launch it
with Java Web Start.

I would only recommend the SWT-road for experienced programmers as it is
a very moving target.   Swing is very well documented and is used by
many people and has support from a lot of IDE's.  Both Netbeans and
Eclipse have GUI designers for Swing, and I have been on a team writing
a very large Swing client.

If your needs are more suited for a web client, then ask for details - I
am currently writing a JavaServerFaces application and may give you a
hint or two.

Best regards,

Thorbjørn