Developing EJBs without using IDE tools

[Radha Damera]

Hi all...
Iam a newbie to EJB and i have installed Websphere application developer v5.0 on my computer.I ran servlets and JSPs on that.Looks like the IDE is doing everything right from compilation untill execution.This in fact is a very good feature as it saves a lot of development time,but as i want to learn EJB,i don't think that it might help me in any way.B'se i will be able to develop EJBs but i will never know what is happening at the back as it is writing everything on its own.

So i want to develop EJB applications right from scratch without using any IDE tools.Will i be able to do that?For example,we can develop servlets using IDE tools like JBuilder or we can type the program in a notepad and compile that on DOS prompt too.I want such primitive option.I think that applies to EJB programs too ie we can write all the class files in notepad and compile them,build them using ant and then deploy them in the J2EE applciation server.Am i correct?

And one more question is when we download j2sdkee, do we get any application server by default(i think there is an application server called j2ee) or do we have to use Sun ONE/Weblogic/Websphere etc.

And can any one suggest me a good tutorial that teaches how to develop EJB applications without using IDE tools?

When iam trying to set ANT_HOME in autoexec.bat,iam getting an error saying "out of environment space".How do i resolve this error?

Any comments and suggestions are welcome,
Regards,
Radha.

[Lasse Koskela]

So i want to develop EJB applications right from scratch without using any IDE tools. Will i be able to do that?

Sure. You can use notepad, compile with javac on the command prompt (as long as you have the j2ee libraries in your classpath), create your archives by hand using the jar utility, etc.
Ant would be a good choice, though. In my opinion, Ant doesn't hide too much in a learning sense as long as you create the build script yourself.

when we download j2sdkee, do we get any application server by default?

The J2EE SDK contains a reference implementation of the J2EE specification -- a working J2EE appserver. That's a crappy thing but is enough for learning to develop spec-compliant applications. I would however suggest you to try some other, production quality application server (jboss, orionserver come to mind as light-weight alternatives that "stay close to the metal" with regard to development/deployment).

[D Peters]

Hello!
I do not recommend the approach of coding all the EJB classes (and deployment desceriptors) by hand. However, I can understand your feeling that by using an IDE to generate everything will leave you in the dark on a lot of the workings of EJB. I highly discourage use of the "Deployment Tool" packaged in the J2EE download by sun. Why do people insist on making such user-friendly GUIs for developers?
A good middle ground is using the EJBDoclet part of XDoclet. You put all of the deployment information you need inside the javadoc of your main EJB (for instance, a Session Bean). EJBDoclet will generate the home, remote, local-home beans, deployment descriptors and any other classes that you need.
You can then go back and look at the files that it generated to give yourself a better understanding of the process. (and you will see that it generates a lot that you dont need). This is becoming a standard process. That is how I learned EJB.
Good luck..