While half the J2EE community squawks about licences and how bad / good JBoss is, I jumped in (not very funny pun intended) and gave this new release of Apache Geronimo milestone build M1 (Apr 28, 2004).
First step with J2EE servers is to see how fast you can get something up and running. So I easily found the binary release (very improtant to be easy to find the correct file to download) and downloaded the zip. I found a good download speed even though everyone else is downloading it. Maybe cached within my service provider or maybe some good bandwidth at their end. Either way it's a good sign. I unzipped the the file and went straight for the README. A great short readme with command line examples that I can immediately copy and paste. So I start the server and search the debugging output for a port I can hit. The log output is not bad for a command line I suppose, so I waded through the line wraps and found that Jetty (from a good Aussie Company) had started on port 8080.
Ok http://localhost:8080 (don't you hate having to enter http:// into IE because you aren't using port 80. Is there a way to make http the default in IE?) and away we go. Right so nothing is found, fair enough, but a nice suggestion about a know context already configured on the server. Hmmm /debug-tool isn't working either. In fact if I go into my console I can see a stack-trace-spew and the server has stopped. I guess to be fair there was something on that first page about Virtual Hosts. I'll soldier on.
Ok so I used a wizard in WSAD to create a web project, added a jsp and a servlet, and then exported the war. Using the next line I easily find in README I see how to deploy an app. Great! Well not really. I get another stack trace. This time in both the client and server windows. At least the server is still running I suppose.
I guess this sounds familiar for a lot of people trying out Open Source projects. I think this sort of 10 minute test is a great thing to do on your own project to evaluate your customer's initial experience with your product. Just because it's free doesn't mean it isn't a product, and one that your customers shouldn't expect good quality from. This is also part of Why Hibernate is Successful. Geronimo has been released as a 1.0 milestone 1. it is a step up from the eternal 0.1, 0.11 and 0.9999 releases. But because the way Eclipse also releases milestones, I think we have come to expect a lot more from major releases such as these.
Anyway I should get along and ... *cough* .... take a look in my own backyard. I hope to dig deeper with Geronimo as an exercise in ... well I'm not really sure. But stay tuned anway.
Posted by dbradby at May 1, 2004 06:35 AMHello. Apparently you are using my name. I was somewhat surprised to say the least.
I'm (Daniel Brabby obviously) living in Australia and been here my whole life. As far as I know I'm the only one in Australia. There aren't too many Bradbys in Australia. The few I know are all related so I wouldn't be surprised to find we are also related.
Tell me a bit about yourself.
I'm clearly not as much of an IT geek as you but also into computers. I work for Telstra, the Australian phone company and have done for most of my working career (and hope to continue to).
Married with two kids... What wlse is of interest??
Not much obviously.
Anyway, hello.
regards
Daniel (yes BRADBY).