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Newsgroups: gmane.linux.debian.user Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 11:50:41 +0100
Alan Chandler wrote:
> So my questions are: > > 1) What tools do I need to develop the application. This includes code > editiing, build environment, unit testing, I tried to setup eclipse on my > workstation but there are unsatisfied dependencies (java runtime?).
You'll need a build tool and Ant is probably the easiest and best to use:
If you're developing web apps, then the Struts frame work is very handy:
I would suggest looking at all the Apache commons libraries that are available via an apt-get install.
I would say that most of these libraries are out of date as you can download newer versions from the Apache website. I do this and manually mange them, it means I've always got the latest version with bug fixes, new functionality etc.
For unit testing, then you can't go wrong with JUnit:
If you want to get fancy then you could download Hibernate and use this to communicate with Postgres. This is waht I'm going to be doing with a small project in the near future:
> 2) What run time environment
You'll also need a servlet engine so either Tomcat 4 or Tomcat 5, depending on what version of the JDK and servlet API you want to use:
There only seems to be Tomcat 4, so you'll be limited to Servlet 2.3 and JSP 1.2.
Finally you'll neeed a decent JVM, I download the Sun ones and build .deb's using this website as a guide:
http://serios.net/content/debian/java/
Just remember to set a JAVA_HOME env variable for Tomcat etc to pick up and use. I've defined mine in /etc/environment and this seems to work okay, although what you do when you change from JDK1.5 to JDK1.4 with update-alternatives I don't know…
> Obviously all this from standard debian packages if that is possible
In some cases it will be easier to download and manually manage certain packages, as you either can't get them or the versions you can get with apt-get are too old.
There doesn't seem to be any decent Java IDE's that come as a .deb package. Netbeans and Eclipse seem to be the two popular ones and ASAIK both come as .bin's so you could manually install them. OTher than that, you could use vi or emacs…
Bob
> Obviously all this from standard debian packages if that is possible
I realize that I am about to become really unpopular here but… (if you're prone to knee jerk reactions I would stop reading now if I were you) avoid the open source Java implementations like the plague. I tried one (inadvertently) about 6 weeks ago and I was surprised how much was implemented. Unfortunately I ran into a bug in the implementation that cost me a lot of development time and it has put me off the open source VM's for good.
As far as the closed source VMs go I would recommend you go for the latest Sun VM. It's fast (for Java) and stable. If you bought a book on Java make sure it covers the changes in Java 1.5 (Java 5) as there were quite a few - some of which are rather nice.
On the development environment front you have two choices Ecplise or NetBeans. I use netbeans as it is better, IMHO, for web development (built in tomcat, junit testing, and ant build scripts) but a lot of people like eclipse. Running netbeans is easy. It comes with a graphical installer or you can just grab the tar ball and just unpack it where ever you want (I stick mine in /usr/local). You can choose the VM used by netbeans with the —jdkhome flag eg:
/usr/local/netbeans-4.1/bin/netbeans —jdkhome /usr/local/jdk1.5.0_03
As for installing Java I recommend using java-package. It's quick and easy and seems to work with all the modern VM packages.
You might also like to install the command line ant from the Debian package.
Graham Smith
> 1) What tools do I need to develop the application. This includes code > editiing, build environment, unit testing, I tried to setup eclipse on my > workstation but there are unsatisfied dependencies (java runtime?).
On sarge, I'm using the netBeans IDE (www.netbeans.org). I tried eclipse and liked the nB editor better.
> 2) What run time environment
I'm using Sun's JDK 5 (or whatever they're calling it this week). At the end of the install, there's a URL to go to to see if it and the mozilla plugin work.
> Obviously all this from standard debian packages if that is possible
Sun java isn't what Debian defines as free. I went through a Java-on-Debian HOWTO, but couldn't get it to work. Sun's install dox did.
Glenn English
> 2) What run time environment
Don't try anything other than Sun JDK (especially *not* the blackdown javas).
> Sun java isn't what Debian defines as free. I went through a > Java-on-Debian HOWTO, but couldn't get it to work. Sun's install dox > did.
It's all there.
> but what is the debian way?
Personally I think you're buying yourself a world of pain if you try to do servlet/ejb/etc java development using the free java tools. They are definitely getting better and are useable for some tasks but aren't completely there yet.
This doc was updated 3 june 2005 and so is presumably up with the latest developments: http://www.nl.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-java-faq/ (I just found this via google).
http://java.debian.net is also useful (I found this in the faq).
I do a lot of java development on Debian, and simply download Sun's standard java for Linux and a standard Eclipse build and work from there. They just need to be untarred, and $PATH set appropriately. Of course junit is also very important, and possibly ant.
I am aware that Fedora ships with a version of Eclipse compiled via gcj which is cool. But I am not aware of a debian package for eclipse. And anyway Eclipse 3.1 is coming out soon with some very useful new features for jsp/j2ee development.
If I was writing a GUI app for linux I might be tempted to try java `
the gtk java bindings ` gcj to generate a native binary from java
source. But not for servlet development.
If you need more info I suggest you ask on the debian-java mail list instead of here.
Simon Kitching
> > Personally I think you're buying yourself a world of pain if you try to > > do servlet/ejb/etc java development using the free java tools. They are > > definitely getting better and are useable for some tasks but aren't > > completely there yet. > > I re-read that 3 times to make sure I had read it correctly. I > completely disagree! I use JBoss, Tomcat, Sun JDK, Eclipse, ant (or > maven) and I have no issues. > > Which non-open-source tools out there should I seriously consider > spending money on?
I only meant Kaffe/Classpath/gcj and things of that level. They've come a long way in the last year or so and I look forward to the day they can be used as a substitute for Sun's JDK. It may not be very far away.
But personally I would develop on Sun/IBM jdks and then port/test on Free platforms rather than develop on free platforms; developing on a platform you can't trust to be generally bug-free and feature-complete isn't nice.
Sun'd JDK is only free-as-in-beer.
Things like JBoss/Tomcat/Eclipse etc. are excellent tools, and at least as good as their commercial competitors IMO.
Simon Kitching
> Obviously all this from standard debian packages if that is possible
I've noticed that many of the answers for this thread suggest to avoid the blackdown. Any justification for that?
The reason I'm asking is that I asked a similar question a while ago, and got a suggest to use blackdown. I was just about to give it a try.
Here are the quotes from the original suggest:
,----- | I am using blackdown j2re1.4, it works. | | [...] | | the blackdown j2re1.4 works perfectly fine, but it's not DFSG free software | due to licensing conditions imposed by Sun. | | There are other projects to create a real free software java platform, but | they are not finished yet. | | [...] | | The sun system is a reasonable alternative, but if I understand correctly it's | essentially the same as the blackdown system anyway, blackdown port java to | linux for Sun (and us). And it's packaged for debian... `-----
Thanks
> I've noticed that many of the answers for this thread suggest to avoid the > blackdown. Any justification for that?
Had problems when trying to make Tomcat/Jboss stuff work. It suddenly worked when I used sun sdk instead. Since I lost a lot of time because of this I can only warn you. Otherwise, blackdown java worked quite well for other purposes.
I believe that the blackdown VM was used as the basis for the first VM on Linux but that was a few years ago now and things have moved on. The blackdown VM is still being updated AFAIK but isn't at 1.5 levels yet (after you have used generics you wouldn't want to go back). You could probably use blackdown for web development but I doubt you could use it for gui work.
Graham Smith
> I've noticed that many of the answers for this thread suggest to avoid the > blackdown. Any justification for that?
IIRC, Blackdown was instrumental in Sun implementing Java on Linux. Blackdown, and all the other FOSS implementations of Java are noble undertakings and I look forward to the day I can use a completely FOSS version of Java on Linux, OSX, and the Redmond OS. I will also be VERY glad when GCJ is done and I can compile my classes into native code. However, until then, not all classes are implemented in any FOSS version of Java.
For me, the biggest problem is that they don't include the GUI classes. I think one has some AWT classes, but I have yet to see anything other than Sun's JVM that has Swing working.
Hal Vaughan
> What is the difference between JBoss and Tomcat. The JBoss web site seems to > imply that JBoss incorporates Tomcat. What extra does it give, and will I > need it.
Basically, Tomcat is a servlet container : it handles JSP (so called Java Server Pages).
JBoss brings the full J2EE stuff, javabeans. (my god !). It comes with its own Tomcat probably because of the sheer complexity of Tomcat/Jboss interaction.
> What is the difference between JBoss and Tomcat. The JBoss web site seems to
Tomcat is a servlet "container". A servlet is the Java equivalent of a CGI program. JBoss is an Enterprise Java Bean container. EJBs are a very involved way of providing Transactions. You won't need it.
Spuggy
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