Practice with HF EJB

[Jemima Job]

I recently passed SWCD and I must confess that i really like the book by Deshmukh which helped me greatly. But i am now preparing for EBCD and just got my HF EJB, but i realised that the details required for setting up an application server are not provided. Sorry kathy that i am making a comparison with the SWCD exam study kit which provided such information. I am not sure if i can still use tomcat, or i need to download the JBoss that you mentioned. It will be nice if you could suggest what to use and how to set it up, so that readers are able to practice as they read.

[Kathy Sierra]

Howdy!
Don't feel bad... everybody loves the SCWCD book.
We don't go into as much detail because we assume that you might already be using a server, but if you look on page xxiv in the intro, it talks about downloading J2EE 1.3. And in my opinion, setting up J2EE can be much easier than Tomcat
The short version:
1) Go to java.sun.com and download J2EE 1.3.1 (get the latest version for your platform)
2) Run it's installer -- it will create a j2eeskd1.3.1 directory with all the right stuff in it (your directory name might be a little different)
3) Set FOUR environment variables;
* PATH must include the /bin directory in side the J2EE top-level directory
* CLASSPATH must include the /lib/j2ee.jar inside the J2EE top-level directory
* J2EE_HOME must point to the top-level J2EE directory
* JAVA_HOME must point to where your jdk is.

EXAMPLE: this is for the linux distribution, running under OSX... my .tcshrc file looks like this:
setenv PATH ${PATH}:/Users/kathy/J2EEStuff/j2sdkee1.3.1/bin
setenv JAVA_HOME /usr
setenv J2EE_HOME /Users/kathy/J2EEStuff/j2sdkee1.3.1
setenv CLASSPATH .:${J2EE_HOME}/lib/j2ee.jar
As you can see, the J2EE directory is in a directory I named "J2EEStuff", which is in my home directory.
Since the RI comes with deployment tools, once you've done this install and set the four environment variables, you can do the walk-through in chapter 1.
If you do NOT have a server that you're familar with, then I REALLY REALLY recommend starting with the J2EE R.I. instead of anything else, just for starting out. It is the simplest to set up and configure.
Be sure to write back with any specific problems you have!
cheers,
Kathy

[Andres Gonzalez]

Originally posted by Jemima Job:
I recently passed SWCD and I must confess that i really like the book by Deshmukh which helped me greatly. But i am now preparing for EBCD and just got my HF EJB, but i realised that the details required for setting up an application server are not provided. Sorry kathy that i am making a comparison with the SWCD exam study kit which provided such information. I am not sure if i can still use tomcat, or i need to download the JBoss that you mentioned. It will be nice if you could suggest what to use and how to set it up, so that readers are able to practice as they read.

you're right, the SCWCD is awesome and they decided to use Tomcat as the web container implementation. My thinking here is that HF wants to be as neutral as possible, so that's the reason they use the RI (and also because it is easier to setup).
you can't use tomcat. Tomcat doesn't support ejb's. Jonas, Jboss, Sun's RI, etc, support ejb. So if you want to learn EJBs as well as Jboss at the same time, then go ahead and use your favorite app server instead of RI
my $0.02
[ November 24, 2003: Message edited by: Andres Gonzalez ]