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Enterprise Java

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Java tools reign supreme

<em>JavaWorld</em> celebrates the leading Java tools

By Jennifer Orr, JavaWorld.com, 06/09/03

Page 3 of 7

ECA judge Tarak Modi, senior specialist with the North Highland Company, appreciates that particular feature of JUnit: "I do not spend too much time writing tests in some cryptic language. The learning curve is almost nonexistent, and the benefits are realized almost instantaneously."

Indeed, simplicity made this tool a favorite among our judges. "JUnit may not be the most feature-rich testing tool," notes Ju Long, a research associate at the Center for Research in E-commerce, University of Texas at Austin. "But since it is so easy to use, it is widely adopted. That makes it the most important tool for unit testing."

Finalists:

• JProbe 5.0, Quest Software
• Optimizeit Suite 5, Borland Software

Best Java Application Server: BEA WebLogic Server 8.1, BEA Systems

Though IBM and BEA continue to publicly bicker over who leads the application server market, this race to one-up each other continues to benefit developers: the Java application servers keep getting better and better, especially, according to our judges, BEA WebLogic.

"All of the app servers are pretty much J2EE 1.3 certified, but BEA is still the leader when it comes to features and functionality built on top of J2EE," says ECA judge Kang. "BEA's integrated tools ease development, integration, management, and monitoring."

Version 8.1's new features include tools that simplify development and deployment, standards-based Web services functionality, a performance increase of more than 30 percent, new monitoring capabilities, and training services.

Future releases will focus on enhanced management and administration, as well as standards support for the latest technologies, says Eric Stahl, director of product marketing at BEA Systems.

"WebLogic Server maximizes developer productivity, reduces the cost of operations and management, and drives standards-based integration into the enterprise, helping customers get ahead in an increasingly competitive world without damaging the bottom line," says Stahl. "As the fastest server available, it allows administrators to configure a cluster in just minutes, as opposed to hours or days with other vendors' application servers."

BEA's superior performance was just one of the deciding factors for ECA judge Roubtsov: "BEA WebLogic Server continues to lead in performance and standard compliance," he says. "WebLogic tends to support the most recent Java API levels and is an exceedingly developer-friendly product."

Finalists:

• IBM WebSphere Application Server 5.0, IBM
• JBoss 3.0, JBoss.org

Best Java Device Application Development Tool: Java 2 Platform, Micro Edition (J2ME) Wireless Toolkit 2.0, Sun Microsystems

Sun's J2ME Wireless Toolkit (J2ME WTK) helps programmers develop wireless applications with Java. It includes an emulation and testing environment for those applications targeted to Java-enabled devices that implement the Mobile Information Device Profile (MIDP) and related extension APIs. For version 2.0, Sun added support for the MIDP 2.0 specification and features, making J2ME WTK the only tool that currently provides such capabilities. J2ME WTK 2.0 also includes support for testing over-the-air downloading and installation of MIDlet applications, the Wireless Messaging API, the Mobile Media API, new device skins, and new gaming APIs.

 

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