Web Services Making Software Coexist?

jgeelan writes "Despite the competitive uproar, coexistence of J2EE and .NET will be the norm and most sophisticated IT organizations will deploy on both development platforms. Who says so? No less an authority than the CTO of J2EE powerhouse BEA Systems, Scott Dietzen, writing in this month's Web Services Journal. Dietzen acknowledges that an ongoing conflict is in progress between Java and C# and between J2EE and the .NET server family and is refeshingly honest, admitting that "there is some truth to the 'write once, test everywhere' complaint against Java." His overall conclusion: ".NET is finding a sweet spot for programmed user interfaces, while J2EE continues to enjoy its sweet spot for server-side applications." Unusual honesty by someone so highly placed. Isn't this just what the software industry needs more of, in these increasingly interoperable times?"

Comments

Honesty or idiocy?

[AJWM]

".NET is finding a sweet spot for programmed user interfaces,"

On a single platform, perhaps. It's true enough that early editions of Java's Swing weren't the swiftest UIs on the block, Swing has to contend with being platform independant. How well does a .NET UI run on a Solaris workstation?

The UI for most server-side applications is probably HTML, anyway, so I'm not sure what his point was. I suspect BEA is just making nice noises toward .NET to gain a foot in the door of MS-only shops, although it is certainly true that at the SOAP level .NET and J2EE could interact.

We'll see how long that lasts when/if .NET market share catches up with J2EE. (Embrace and extend, anyone?)

Re:Honesty or idiocy?

[TummyX]

On a single platform, perhaps. It's true enough that early editions of Java's Swing weren't the swiftest UIs on the block, Swing has to contend with being platform independant. How well does a .NET UI run on a Solaris workstation?

The UI for most server-side applications is probably HTML, anyway, so I'm not sure what his point was.


That is the point. C#, ASP.NET and VS.NET are the perfect combination if you want to make HTML based UIs. You just drag a button onto a webpage, double click and write the event handling code in C#. The C# is compiled into a server side component along with some ASPX pages. The UI is completely HTML based and cross platform. The HTML generated can be transformed to work on all types of browsers (utilising the features of each). Anything that can't be done client side is done on the server side.

You pretty much write HTMl pages the same way you would write a standard GUI application and .NET takes care of the rest. Its a great way to program HTML UIs. And I think that was part of his point.

Re:Honesty or idiocy?

[wadetemp]

How well does a .NET UI run on a Solaris workstation?

Actually you answered your own question. It runs fine, if its an ASP.NET UI. Working on HTML/JavaScript based UI is nearly the same process as developing a client side UI in .NET, given the event-based programming model and similar UI classes for both. Granted, you can't yet run a pure Windows.Forms application on Solaris, but you didn't ask "how well does a .NET Windows Forms UI run on a Solaris workstation," did you? :)

Re:Honesty or idiocy?

[RevAaron]

I don't know about for Java, but VisualWorks Smalltalk (there's a free, non-commercial version for download for Mac OS, Mac OS X, Linux, Windows, many other Unices) that does something like this. Using one single UI builder, you construct a GUI for the traditional GUI application. From the same spec it generates, a web application and interface. You define callbacks and such just like you would for a regular app, and VisualWave (the web app toolkit) takes care of the rest of it.

VisualWorks has had this ability for quite a while, at least 4 years or so, which was the first time I played with it. I don't doubt that there may have been something before it that did the same thing, but it preceeds .NET and probably even a similar Java tool.

Re:Honesty or idiocy?

[TheAncientHacker]

But, some of us actually want to use features not in all browsers. I don't really want to have to code separate versions of every page for Netscape 1.0 and for Lynx. You see, the world has changed since 1994. Really. It has.

Anyone who's done web pages for real has had to deal with browser compatibility. The ASP.NET approach of emitting different HTML for different browsers makes this a LOT less of a pain.

Re:Since when have .Net/C# proven themselves?

[wadetemp]

How many months do you have to have worked with them to be considered old dog on the development team?

18? It's not like it just came out yesterday, the beta has been available for at least a year and a half. Wrox put out books on programming with the beta languages and the beta framework.

Re:Since when have .Net/C# proven themselves?

[PyroPunk]

The consulting firm I work at has deployed a Point Of Sale system running on the .Net framework; it's currently running in 4 restaurants. The touchscreen GUI was written in C#, as was the business and data tiers. We use .Net remoting to communicate between the touchscreen and the server. Just started development using the .Net compact framework to let the waiters use Pocket PC devices when taking orders. I've been developing in .Net since June of last year; deployed two intranet sites and an e-commerce site since then. Have been developing in Java since '97. I personally don't consider one better than the other; but then again I'm not out there fighting a religious battle against Microsoft either.

Uses

[Tablizer]

(begin list of real-world uses for web services)









(end list)

Re:BEA is a joke

[RevAaron]

I'm afraid I don't follow you. Eclipse is an IDE. Like JBuilder or NetBeans, not an application server. Sure, you could build web applications from scratch or using a more primitive product using Eclipse or any other IDE or editor, but Eclipse doesn't replace Weblogic Server any more than emacs.

Maybe the support people don't follow you either, because you don't have a handle on what you're talking about? Maybe it seems overpriced because you're buying a web app server to do the job of an editor? Perhaps I'm being too harsh, but just some ideas.

Re:More Python Please!

[RevAaron]

And I'll be building even better applications via a web, telnet, or regular GUI interface at runtime in a much better language, Smalltalk. :)

But yeah, you're very right. There are many options other than .NET and Java. I know there isn't much for Python, but there are a few companies (IBM, Cincom, GemStone) that provide real commercial support for their web app server products.

MS Model not ready for primetime?

[Otis_INF]

LOL :)

And why's that? WSDL isn't MS proprietry language, it's a standard defined by many companies, and should be used with UDDI, currently in v2.0. .NET is a framework which IS ready for primetime, because it offers all the functionality needed to build mission critical applications which have to serve thousands of users.

So, f00zbll, show me the beef where .NET falls short when it comes to delivering what's promised.

ps: I develop a lot of .NET software, I know what I'm talking about.