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News - Articles/Tutorials/Code/Reviews - JSP/Servlet Hosting Companies - Links |
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***** IN THIS ISSUE **************************************************
News
1:Sun Outlines J2EE Strategy
2:Microsoft Gearing Up for .Net
3:Whistler License Plan Angers Users
4:Macromedia Buys Allaire
Rambles
1:Supporting the JSP Community
Links
1:Java Ranch JSP Forum
2:Tracking Down J2EE
3:An Alternative to Netscape 6.0
4:Javable Java Tool Reviews
5:Motorola and Borland Team Up to Give Jbuilder to Developers
6:Free VisualCafé 4.1 Download
7:Developers Cry Foul over Microsoft Language
8:Benchmarking Security
9:Using XSL Formatting Objects
10:International Conference for Java Development Spring 2001
New Products
1: CodeCharge
Main Topic
1:Brief Introduction to JSP WAR Files
Like this newsletter? Tell a friend about the JSP Buzz!
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THE LATEST NEWS
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1) Sun Outlines J2EE Strategy (Info World 01.17.2001)
Sun indicates that J2EE servers represent over 75% of the application
server market. Since the application server market is still extremely
young it is hard to really put these numbers into perspective. From a
JSP point of view this indicates that many projects which may have been
JSP-only web applications will grow into fully fledged J2EE applications.
For more information the official press release.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/010116/ca_sun_mic.html
2) Microsoft Gearing Up for .Net (Microsoft 01.16.2000)
Microsoft wants to be the leader of the application server market and
they are gearing up their bid to become so. This is the announcement
for Microsoft's tool kit for building applications using their servers.
The beta release is expected Spring 2001. For some commentary on this
see the TheServerSide.com.
3) Whistler License Plan Angers Users (Vnunet 01.18.2001)
Microsoft recently angered users by introducing a severely limiting
licensing plan for its next generation operating system. The new
method of installation and licensing will lengthen deployment time
and increase the required manpower and downtime for installing the
new operating system. Also in follow up news some additional insight
on the matter can be found at The Register.
You may wonder why this link is included. This represents a fundamental
shift in the way licenses are permitted. If Microsoft is successful in
using this model you can bet almost every other major software vendor will
follow suit. If you shake the magic eight ball to find the answer of the
question: "Will Microsoft succeed with this new licensing?" The answer is
"yes". Too much money is involved for Microsoft not to be persistent and
make it work. Microsoft has a unique problem due to their market
dominance in operating systems: How do you increase sales after everyone
owns your system? They need to look elsewhere for sales growth. On average
for each CD published, that CD actually installs more than one copy of the
software. So Microsoft wants to prevent this from happening and cash in on
each installation rather than each CD. I expect that it will just take a
while for Microsoft to get it right, but in time something like this will
become the standard system.
4) Macromedia Buys Allaire (TechWeb 01.16.2001)
Macromedia now has access to its own Java application server (JRun)
and the fully fledged Kawa JAVA IDE. This powerful merger will have a
large impact on the Java development community. Since Macromedia is
largely concerned with client-side development (Flash and Dreamweaver)
expect this merger to energize Macromedia's interest and support of JSP.
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Rambles by Casey Kochmer
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**************** Supporting the JSP Community ******************
The JSP Insider would like to send out this ramble to the JSP community.
If you are interested in writing or have an interesting piece of code we
welcome your contributions. We have a large and vibrant readership of JSP
programmers who regularly stop at our site. We would love to hear from you.
As writers ourselves we have all enjoyed our experiences building and
creating materials for you to use. The JSP Insider was built to be open
and help others be part of this process. So if you ever had the desire
to write, or have an idea you would like to share please consider using
the JSP Insider as a place to do so.
If you are interested in finding out more please send us an email.
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Links of Interest
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[JSP Help] Java Ranch JSP Forum
The Java Ranch recently started up a great JSP Forum. If you have a JSP
question this is a great place to stop and ask for help.
[Article] Tracking Down J2EE (David Alpher 01.2001)
This article is good if you want learn a little more about J2EE. It is
brief and talks about why J2EE has transparency and the benefits of an
open system. If you are already into J2EE then ignore this link.
[Gecko] An Alternative to Netscape 6.0 (Mozilla.org 01.08.2001)
The options seem bleak for the many Netscape users who are not happy
with Netscape 6. Well I am here to let you know options still exist. The
latest release of the Mozilla browser is out and it is pretty good. I
have been using Mozilla 0.7 for the past few days and for the most part
it seems to work better than Netscape 6.0. OK, it isn't as fast as Opera
but it's faster than Netscape 6.
[Java IDE's] Javable Java Tool Reviews
If you are looking for a Java IDE you should check out this list. It
is a brief but nice listing of many of the Java IDE's with a quick
review about the good and bad aspects of each one.
[Java IDE] Motorola and Borland Team Up to Give Jbuilder to Developers
Partnerships and mergers seem to be popular in the Java community.
The latest one is between Motorola and Borland. If you sign up in
Motorola's Developer Support Program you can get a free copy of the
JBuilder 4 Foundation development environment. This is one more sign
of Motorola's commitment to make Java work for their handheld devices.
[Java IDE] Free VisualCafé 4.1 Download
It seems free Java IDE's are the hot topic of the week. You can download
a free version of VisualCafé 4.1 Standard Edition. Be warned it is a 108MB
download. Personally I haven't look at this download yet as I use Forte
and JEdit. If anyone finds VisualCafe to be a good JSP editor let me know.
[Article] Developers Cry Foul over Microsoft Language (CNet 01.18.2001)
Seems like Microsoft has a PR problem and it's called .Net. In order
to upgrade Visual Basic, Microsoft has to break with past versions. As
an end result the new software is very different and many Visual Basic
developers are unhappy that an easy upgrade isn't available. The latest
version of VB.net has earned nicknames like Visual Fred and VB.Not. This
means software shops with current Visual Basic applications are looking
at rebuilding their systems, not just upgrading. This means a huge cost
impact for Visual Basic-based shops. I wonder how many Microsoft shops
will make the switch to JSP due to this situation.
[Security] Benchmarking Security (Bruce Schneier 01.15.2001)
The truth of security is that you are never truly secure. The Center
for Internet Security has recently formed
to help people determine how safe their computer systems are from attack.
The only problem with such an organization is that they can fail by
providing a false sense of security. Bruce takes a close look at this
latest attempt to help us solve the toughest problem we face as system
designers. I suggest reading this article as a reminder that their are
no easy solutions in this area of computing.
[XML / XSL] Using XSL Formatting Objects (J. David Eisenberg 01.17.2001)
The XSL formatting object (XSL FO) is not a very well known piece of XSL.
Using the format object isn't simple and requires some effort to use
correctly. The reason you would want to use XSL FO is to specify in
great detail every aspect of the way you want your page formatted. You
can control everything from pagination to styling information. This is a
solid tutorial to walk you through the basics of XSL FO. This article is
only recommended if you already have a decent understanding of using XSL.
[Conference] International Conference for Java Development Spring 2001
Some of the JSP Insider Crew (Jayson & Casey) will be speaking at ICJD
conference. This is an exciting conference with 3 days of accelerated
Java learning. Also you can attend 2 days of Sun Microsystems' Java
University. If you are interested in meeting and chatting about JSP
we would be glad to talk with you at the conference!
===============================================================
New Product Press Releases
These products are not sponsors or advertisements. They are products
that might be of interest to the JSP community.
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[New Product] CodeCharge (YesSoftware)
This new code generation application helps build database-based web
sites. The tool has JSP support. It is interesting in that it supports
most of the major server-side scripting tools.
================================================================
MAIN TOPIC by Casey Kochmer
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************* Brief Introduction to JSP WAR Files. *************
This is a quick introduction on how to easily package and move your web
application around using Web Archive (WAR) files. A WAR file is a format
for compressing, archiving and distributing a web application. The good
news is that WAR files are very easy to build. You can use the standard
Java archive tools to produce a WAR file. Overall, a WAR file is a
wonderfully simple way to distribute your web application. Once you are
done with development, you just package everything into a single file to
be installed on your destination JSP container.
BUILDING A WAR FILE
A WAR file is basically a JAR file with a few extra rules regarding
what data is included within the file. This means the most common way to
create a WAR file is to simply use the jar utility that comes with Java.
Go to the top level directory of your web site and execute the jar command.
For more information on how to use the jar utility and build JAR files see
the Sun site tutorials.
If you haven't used JAR files yet I strongly suggest you browse this
Sun Tutorial.
Since a WAR file is a zipped file, to build it you really can use any
tool that lets you build zip files. When I need to create a WAR file
quickly I personally use WinZip and then rename the file to have a .war
extension.
If you are going to be constantly building WAR files then you should
consider using a tool to help automate your work. The tool of choice is
called ANT. This tool will
automate building your WAR file. In fact, ANT allows you to do much more
than build WAR files. ANT is an improved Makefile tool based on Java and
XML driven configuration files. With ANT you may easily rebuild and
compile your entire project and then produce a WAR file. ANT supports
much more than just JSP and is a great Java utility for automating the
building of any Java project you may have. How to use ANT is beyond what
this article can cover. We plan to write up a tutorial later to cover
this topic. (Or if someone already has a good tutorial then let us know!)
If you plan on using ANT give yourself at least 3 days to play with and
understand this powerful utility.
WHAT GOES INTO THE WAR FILE?
The WAR file will contain all of your web application files and classes.
In addition, WAR Files have two directories within them.
The first is the META-INF directory. If you are a new JSP programmer you
have probably wondered about the purpose of this directory. Well, it is
used collect information useful to the Java Archive tools. The META-INF
directory is where the manifest file gets stored. You can find out more
about the manifest file at the Sun site.
Typically you won't need to do anything special with your manifest file.
The second directory is the WEB-INF directory. This is most critical
directory as it contains the information your JSP container needs to
define your web application. The all-important web.xml file is stored
within this directory. Also this is the best place to store your Java
class files under the "WEB-INF/classes/" directory. All other archive
files will be stored in the "/WEB-INF/lib/" subdirectory. Finally, if
you have any tag libraries it is customary to place your TLD (Tag Library
Descriptors) within the "WEB-INF/tlds/" directory.
As a side note, your JSP container will not allow either WEB-INF or
META_INF directories to be served to a web client's request.
You have two options when you build a WAR file. You can include your JSP
files or you can deploy with already precompiled servlets. If you deploy
with precompiled servlets then your web application won't have the
overhead of the initial first compiling of each JSP page. I find it
preferable to just deploy with the JSP files as it is easier.
USING THE WAR FILE
Once you have a WAR file all you need to do is place it in the correct
directory. Any JSP 1.1 container will recognize and handle a WAR file.
Each JSP container might have a slightly different way to handle the
importing of a WAR file.
In Tomcat 3.x, it is a manual process where all you need to do is:
1) Make sure the server.xml file has a <Context> entry for your web
application.
2) Place the WAR file into your "webapps" directory.
3) Re-start Tomcat.
Tomcat then unpackages the WAR file and creates the web site. Now Tomcat
will only unload the WAR file as long as the web site doesn't exist. So
if you are updating an existing site with a new WAR file remember to
remove the old site first.
The one downside to WAR files is that they can be a hassle to keep
rebuilding when you are in constant development. Every time you make a
change you would need to repackage your web site and then have your server
reload the WAR file. So unless you use a tool like ANT to automate your
work, you should only use WAR files for distribution of your web site.
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