Java.next -- Four languages that represent the future of Java
Blogger Stuart Halloway has begun a series of posts on trends that point to the future of the Java platform. In his first post, he compares Clojure, Groovy, JRuby, and Scala -- four wildly different languages that nonetheless all play together in the JRE. Find out what unites these languages and what they can tell us about the future of Java-based development ...

Newsletter sign-up

Sign up for our technology specific newsletters.

Enterprise Java
View all newsletters
Email Address:
JavaWorld.com > Java Enterprise Edition >

Rumble in the jungle: J2EE versus .Net, Part 1

How do J2EE and Microsoft's .Net compare in enterprise environments?

By Humphrey Sheil and Michael Monteiro, JavaWorld.com, 06/28/02

With the advent of .Net, Microsoft introduced an enterprise computing platform able to compete toe-to-toe with Sun Microsystems' J2EE (Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition). Microsoft's move leaves J2EE developers with two options: ignore .Net or analyze it. In this article, we choose the latter, analyzing and comparing the two technologies.

Both platforms feature innovative ideas—ideas that should cross pollinate, not stagnate on one specific platform. Furthermore, we all want technologies that add the best business value and are cutting edge, not bleeding edge! So, which language works better—.Net's C# or Java? Is .Net poised to sweep all before it or is Microsoft's mighty marketing machine simply desperate to make you think so? Well, in this two-part series we'll dive into the technologies to find out.

Read the whole "Rumble in the Jungle: J2EE Versus .Net" series:



In this article, we first examine J2EE and .Net in turn, then line the technologies up to understand how each approaches common enterprise problems. To actualize the terms and concepts introduced here, we briefly introduce our sample application: the Ice Cold Beer Boutique. In Part 2 we will focus exclusively on its background code and architecture of both J2EE and .Net implementations.

What is J2EE?

When thinking of the Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition, the key word is platform. Java represents more than just a programming language, as it encompasses the VM technology that lets compiled Java programs run unaltered on various machine architectures; tools to compile, analyze, debug, and deploy Java programs; and other components, such as browser plug-ins, rich media, and more. Talk about feature creep!

The three faces of Java

About two years ago, Sun reorganized the Java platform into three profiles:

  • The Java 2 Platform, Micro Edition (J2ME), for handheld and other lower-end devices
  • The Java 2 Platform, Standard Edition (J2SE), targeted at desktop machines
  • The Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE), installed on servers and responsible for the heavy lifting in the Java world.


Although it's something of a simplification, you can think of J2ME as a subset of J2SE and J2EE as a superset of J2SE.

Our J2EE definition

Definition: J2EE is a Java-based technology stack, built on top of J2SE, that provides developers with the development tools and runtime capabilities necessary to build enterprise applications meeting rigorous uptime, security, scalability, and maintainability requirements.

The latest version of J2EE is 1.3. Sun uses the J2EE platform to synchronize the constituent technology specifications for specific releases. Here's a partial J2EE components list:

  • JavaServer Pages (JSPs): Generate dynamic content for Web browsers and mobile devices. JSPs resemble HTML, especially when developers use custom tag libraries to remove Java code from the JSPs themselves, making them easier to maintain.
  • Servlets: Build control and navigation logic into J2EE applications, typically following a Model-View-Controller design pattern in conjunction with JSPs.
  • Enterprise JavaBeans (EJBs): The mainstay of the J2EE platform. There are two main types of EJB: session beans that model business logic and entity beans that model persistent data. When coded correctly, EJBs provide transparent scaling, a security framework, a transaction model, and a container-managed life cycle.
  • Java Connectivity Architecture (JCA): Lets Java enterprise applications interface with existing non-Java enterprise applications like SAP. Specifically, transactions and security roles can propagate, allowing you to fully utilize legacy applications in a J2EE architecture.
  • Java Message Service (JMS): Provides asynchronous messaging capabilities to the J2EE platform. Established message-oriented middleware (MOM) vendors like IBM (MQ Series) and Tibco (Rendezvous) provide JMS faces to their products.
  • Java Management Extensions (JMX): Manages J2EE servers and applications.
  • Java Naming and Directory Interface (JNDI): A required part of the J2EE platform, JNDI provides component location transparency in a clustered J2EE environment.


Although the following components are technically part of J2SE, they prove important for J2EE applications as well:

  • Java Database Connectivity (JDBC): The real bread and butter of any enterprise application! JDBC handles all database input/output via SQL.
  • The HotSpot Virtual Machine: Can run in server mode to better profile long-running applications with stringent requirements for thread and memory management. The HotSpot VM has addressed most of the initial concerns about J2EE's performance.
Figure 1 depicts these components as a J2EE technology stack.

Figure 1. High-level overview of the J2EE technology stack. Click on thumbnail to view full-size image.

The Java community: Spirit and ethos

In addition to these technologies, the Java platform boasts another important feature: the Java developer community.

With Java, you'll find free, open source tools, such as Ant (a build tool), JUnit (a testing framework), JBoss (an application server), and NetBeans (an integrated development environment, or IDE). More exist—SourceForge lists hundreds of Java-related initiatives.

Moreover, look at the curriculum for any third-level teaching institution. In many such schools, students learn programming by studying Java. The same phenomenon pushed Unix from a 1970s research curiosity to the operating system that it is today. What's my point? The students of today are the programmers of tomorrow, and they are learning in Java and Unix.

What is .Net?

So what exactly is .Net? Unlike J2EE's specification set, .Net is a suite of shipping products (although some parts of .Net have been ratified as international standards by the European Computer Manufacturers Association (ECMA)).

According to Microsoft, ".Net is a set of Microsoft software technologies for connecting your world of information, people, systems, and devices."

Resources