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Review: Sun Java Studio Creator Early Access Release
by Drew Falkman
Summary
Sun's anticipated release of what is supposed to be the Java
equivalent of Microsoft's Visual Studio is here at last.
Previously known under the auspicious code name Project Rave,
Java Studio Creator(JSC) is a drag-and-drop programming environment
built on top of the NetBeans platform. Currently, JSC can be
used to create JavaServer Pages/JavaServer Faces applications,
though they will allow for Swing development in
future versions. Overall, I was pleased with JSC and think it is
a welcome addition to the Java library of developer's tools.
Given that this is pre-release software, and built on
NetBeans, I was surprised at how well it performed.
More Information
Introduction
Java Studio Creator comes with everything a beginning (or advanced)
developer needs to get started building J2EE applications. In
addition to the IDE, JSC also includes Sun's Java System
Application Server, Pointbase Java-based relational database
management system, the Java Software Development Kit and a
number of tutorials, docs and JavaServer Faces components. JSC
utilizes a standards-based development paradigm. This paradigm
works as follows:
- JSP templates are the primary element of applications. They
will be the core interface and processing pages.
- JSF is used for layout and form-building components, data
validation and data conversion.
- Managed beans (simple JavaBeans components) handle the data
model, including session/application management.
Beyond that, JSC development is about as straightforward as one
would wish. A beginning Web developer could fire up this IDE and
have a simple Web application development in little time.
Additionally, because of the standards compliance and a good
development team at Sun, the generated code is easy-to-read and
more seasoned developers are provided one-click access to it at
all times.
Setup and Installation
Currently JSC is available for Windows 2000/XP, Solaris SPARC
and Linux. I tested JSC on Windows XP. The installation was very smooth. I
followed the steps and everything worked without having to
mess around with configuration files, classpaths or other setup
issues. One thing to note; if you intend to play around with the
sample database, be sure to start the Pointbase server by
running the pb-start.bat batch file in the {JSC install
directory}\startup\bin directory (there is also a shortcut in
Windows >> Programs >> Sun Microsystems >> J2EE 1.4 SDK). You do
not, however, need to worry about starting the J2EE application
server for testing--JSC will do that for you automatically when
you first debug or run a page.
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