Web services: j2ee 1.4 vs weblogic

Question

hi.
i have been an enterprise java developer for some years now but have not
stepped into web services realm until very recently. one of the reasons
for me holding back was due to this piece of news that i stumbled upon
about 4 months ago. it stated that Sun's implementation of web services
will not be fully functional until its ee 1.4 release. it claimed that
due to this lag, many app server vendors (BEA being one of them) are not
waiting for Sun, but instead developing their own versions of web
service imlementation which are specific to their respective enterprise
environments.. as a result, this would lead away from a standardized
implementation of web services within the java world. what is your take
on this?
thanks!!!

Answer 1

Hi Mikhail,
IMHO, Sun absolutely "drug its feet" with the JSRs that eventually resulted in
the "Java Web Services Developer Pack" (JWSDP)! See http://java.sun.com/webservices/downloads/webservicespack.html.
By the time they came up with suitable APIs, all the vendors creating Java-based
implementations of the XML grammars that underly Web services, already had shipping
product ;-) Naturally, they (Sun) would like to see all these vendors move there
product's code-base onto the API in the JWSDP, and I presume some will. The problem
I see with JWSDP is that it doesn't truly address what is still the biggest issue:
interoperability between Microsoft's Web Services tools (.NET, ASP.NET, or whatever)
and the Java-basd Web Services tools. A lot of vendors have already made "substantial
headway" in resolving this problem, and I doubt if they are willing to give this
up ;-)
That said, I think you will find that most J2EE-vendors (can't really speak for
WebLogic, of course) will wait until JWSDP becomes part of a J2EE specification,
before they expend a lot of effort "porting" their Web Service platforms to its
APIs ;-) You should probably pose your question to folks like Graham Glass (from
MindElectric, creators of GLUE) and Anne Thomas Mannes (CTO of Systinet, creators
of WASP). I'm sure they will be forthright and candid with their reply.
Regards,
Mike Wooten
mikhail perelman <[email protected]> wrote:
hi.
i have been an enterprise java developer for some years now but have
not
stepped into web services realm until very recently. one of the reasons
for me holding back was due to this piece of news that i stumbled upon
about 4 months ago. it stated that Sun's implementation of web services
will not be fully functional until its ee 1.4 release. it claimed that
due to this lag, many app server vendors (BEA being one of them) are
not
waiting for Sun, but instead developing their own versions of web
service imlementation which are specific to their respective enterprise
environments.. as a result, this would lead away from a standardized
implementation of web services within the java world. what is your take
on this?
thanks!!!