Web services Development

Question

A general question for the group (sorry if this is off-topic, if there's a better
forum for this type of Q let me know).
I'm a web services and web app developer who is new to BEA. In the past I've used
toolkits like Axis for web services and I've always preferred this approach. It
seems to me that using BEA I can develop Web Services in one of two ways. The
'low-level' way where I could use the command line tools (or ant) to create, deploy
and manage the code, or I could use WLW and the nice attribute driven approach.
It strikes me (on first blush) that these techniques are not compatible, so if
I choose one I have to stick with that, and I shouldn't (can't) mix and match
the two.
As a relative newcomer to this community which one should I choose?
Which are people out there using?
Can the approaches me mixed?
What implications does using one or the other have in terms of deployment and
the type of WLS I have installed?
Again sorry if this is off topic, or an RTFM. If either of these is the case pointers
to the FM would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Kevin Jones

Answer 1

I think if you are looking for training in "BEA web services" then do
it the WLW way.
However, if you think your web service may be deployed to a non-BEA
app server, then pick up the standards.
This is true for regular web apps using struts vs. WLW's 'netui'
and JSR 162 vs. WLW Portals as well.
Kevin Jones wrote:
Thanks Michael,
anybody else have any comments?
For example if you were looking for training in BEA web services would you expect
it to be WLW or 'command line' based?
Kevin
"Michael Wooten" <[email protected]> wrote:
Hi Kevin,
The two web services development approaches are for two different audiences,
so
it's up to you to select which is more to your liking :-)
Developers who are familiar with the Apache Axis Web Services Platform,
will find
lots of similarities in the Ant-scrpt based approach that the WLS 8.1
Web Services
Platform uses. This would also be the environment for those that really
like to
see that their code uses classes from a standard, like JAX-RPC or SAAJ.
Workshop is really targeted at developers who are less interested in
the mechanics
of Web service construction, and more interested in what they want the
web service
to do. It offers developers with this mindset, almost complete isolation
from
the technologies associated with web service development (i.e. SOAP,
WSDL, XML,
etc.), while still producing a deployable web service that can interoperate
with
web services created by other Web Service stacks.
Again, both of these approaches have healthy developer audiences, so
I see no
real reason to promote one over the other. Personally, I think it makes
sense
to become adept at both.
All in all, I'd have to say that Workshop makes better use of the developer's
time :-)
Regards,
Mike Wooten
"Kevin Jones" <[email protected]> wrote:
A general question for the group (sorry if this is off-topic, if there's
a better
forum for this type of Q let me know).
I'm a web services and web app developer who is new to BEA. In the past
I've used
toolkits like Axis for web services and I've always preferred this approach.
It
seems to me that using BEA I can develop Web Services in one of twoways.
The
'low-level' way where I could use the command line tools (or ant) to
create, deploy
and manage the code, or I could use WLW and the nice attribute driven
approach.
It strikes me (on first blush) that these techniques are not compatible,
so if
I choose one I have to stick with that, and I shouldn't (can't) mixand
match
the two.
As a relative newcomer to this community which one should I choose?
Which are people out there using?
Can the approaches me mixed?
What implications does using one or the other have in terms of deployment
and
the type of WLS I have installed?
Again sorry if this is off topic, or an RTFM. If either of these isthe
case pointers
to the FM would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Kevin Jones