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Apache Tomcat 4.0 Final Released
Posted by
Hemos
on Tue Sep 18, 2001 04:18 PM
from the meow-meow-roar dept.
from the meow-meow-roar dept.
A reader writes "The latest version of the Apache Java Servlet engine has been released. 'The 4.0 release implements the Servlet 2.3 and JSP 1.2 specifications.' Read more at The Apache Group's Jakarta site."
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Apache Tomcat 4.0 Final Released
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Tomcat looks good (Score:5, Informative)
Apache does some great things with Java. I have worked both with Tomcat (servlet container), Xerces (XML parser) and Xalan (XSLT engine). Thanks to the good work to come out from Apache, Java has become a very strong competitor to MS
With a strong XML foundation in place, Java's future is looking really good.
very cool (Score:5, Informative)
Woah! (Score:1)
Good places to start? (Score:1)
WOW - 6 hours (Score:2, Informative)
THAT WAS TODAY. Less than six hours later (I don't know the exact amount of time) Tomcat was announcing the official release of Tomcat 4. That is going fast!
And that also means... (Score:2, Informative)
Hehe (Score:3, Insightful)
I've been using Tomcat 3.2 in production for the last 6 months or so and it's been a wonderful servlet container. I can't wait to try out 4 in our testing environment!
Very Mini howto... (Score:5, Informative)
Make sure you have a JDK installed, like Sun's Windows version [sun.com].
Unzip to a directory - taking the defaults sets you up in c:\jakarta-tomcat-4.0.
Go to the control pannel, click system, click advanced, click Environment Variables. Click new button on system variables and create a JAVA_HOME with a path to where you extracted your JDK. (My box has javac located in c:\jdk\bin, so my JAVA_HOME is c:\jdk). Create a TOMCAT_HOME as above pointing to c:\jakarta-tomcat-4.0.
Open up a command prompt, cd to c:\jakarta-tomcat-4.0\bin and run startup.bat.
Open a browser and type in http://localhost:8080, you should see it...
Happy hacking in the example code!
Load balancing? (Score:2)
Does Tomcat4.0 support load balancing the way 3.2.x did?
In 3.3.x you could load balance a cluster of Tomcats through apache and mod_jserv or mod_jk (which is what we use). So does T4.0 support load balancing and if so is it through mod_jk or is there a new module to do the job? If so has anyone played with it yet?
Hopefully it intalls easier... (Score:3, Informative)
Frankly, it wasn't until I got it going on a debian/x86 machine (apt-get install tomcat) that I was able to trace my way back and install it on solaris. Not that apache itself was much better, trying to get apxs working.
Then, after it was going, I tried to enable
So, I am *eager* to try out this release, and I truly hope that my complaints are now foundless. I would love nothing better than to be proven wrong, that the documentation has been completely overhauled, that it now understands the common ~username, that it works with any jdk besides blackdown's (on linux), and that it basically doesn't suck. But I'm not holding my breath.
J2EE-ish support? (for java CA) (Score:3, Interesting)
The only problem is that I seem to be missing a piece of the puzzle. For now, I'm creating and initializing the beans explicitly, but shouldn't this be handled automatically somewhere/somehow? I'm sure I'm just missing some small piece of information in this huge pile. Does this release address this problem, or is it an entirely different set of code?
(As a related aside, I'm gonna stop using Debian if it continues to have such long release cycles. I eventually got suitable openssl (0.9.6), postgres (7.0) and java (1.3) installed, but it took days and a lot of pain because of the length of the "to do A you must first do B, to do B you must first do C, to do... chain.)
Tomcat As the Anti.NET? (Score:4, Interesting)
Tomcat has tremendous potential to deliver robust, complete apps in the same way
Is my thinking correct in that we can level this software against Microsoft's upcoming ventures? Can we make a
slightly offtopic, other jakarta stuff (Score:3, Informative)
J-Run (Score:2)
I'm just wondering because I know some folks who are looking at upgrading J-Run, and I might advise them to check out Tomcat instead if that makes sense.
Thanks!
Why use PHP? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Why use PHP? (Score:5, Informative)
Help! (Score:2)
I can't seem to find any docs on how this might work, nor could I find any information on ajp12 at all in the 4.0 documentation! Now that the app has been rewritten (completely, finally) away from VB/asp to Java, it is possible to move to Apache (on any platform, since the code was carefully written to avoid platform-specific issues), but I'd still like to have the option of sticking with IIS at least for testing/benchmark comparison purposes...
JRun is better... (Score:2, Interesting)
IMO, Simplicity isn't necessarily a bad thing...
performance (Score:1)
Apache+jserv+gnujsp: 109.50 pages/second
Resin 2.0.2 standalone: 55.87 pages/second
Tomcat 4.0 beta: 24.65 pages/second
Tomcat 3.2: 10.08 pages/second
The page I tested was the hello.jsp one that comes with gnujsp. I'm on a PIII 800 with NT 4.0 using Sun's 1.3 jdk.
I used the MS stress tester with 10 threads and 10 connections/thread. (I was lazy ran the web server and tester on the same machine.)
Apache/jserv was the only one that got no errors during the test. The rest failed a few hundred times.
I did request the page on each server to compile the jsp before running the tests.
These numbers could easily be off by 25%. What's interesting is that there's a full order of magnitude across implementations.
Tomcat lacks documents? (Score:1)
The Apache document is a good example of how it is done. It contains details on every single configuration options and plus entire chapter on common tasks (eg DSO, Virtual Host). The Apache default conf file is probably the best commented of its type out there, sometime you don't even need to refer anything else to fully configure your installation!
Note that this is NOT an attack on Tomcat as an application, once it is installed by someone who know what they are doing, it runs great. It is just that the initial step is very difficult for many people. Hopefully now that 4.0 is out, the developers can spend more time on documentations.
Tomcat is a REFERENCE impl (Score:1)
I can't speak for any of the rest of the Apache group, since I have no experience with that side. However, I can safely say that the Java Apache group on the whole puts out some truly awful things, that only make it because of the clout and rep that the 'Apache' name brings.
Tomcat is supposed to be a reference impl of the spec as put forth by the servlet expert group. In reality, the tomcat people are on that expert group, and do their utmost to spread a broken spec because 'we implemented it that way'. The spec has a number of very annoying failings (with regards to filters and request dispatchers, as well as context issues) that only made it in because the tomcat folk thought it's too hard to implement these properly. It's ludicrous that the spec suffers, because of incompetent vendors who have too much clout.
The only java project at Apache that works and works well is ant, the rest of the useful ones are those that moved under that umbrella and grew outside of Apache (log4j, oro). ECS is a horrific idea, Slide doesn't work in any useful manner, Velocity is a ripoff of webmacro/freemarker), etc etc.
It's a tight knit group of part time developers, with fairly fragile egos (obviously, this is a general perception, not 100% accurate!), who often get hugely defensive about their impls.
At the end of the day, what matters to the end (business) user is how well the product performs, how well it scales, and other such measures. I can guarantee that tomcat is bottom of the list in any benchmark you care to run against any modern servlet engine. Yet, it's hailed as a success story. Open your eyes!
if you want a real servlet engine, go with Orion or resin (or even jetty).
works great! (Score:1)
from download to install and http access (on solaris 8/sparc) in 5 minutes!
servlet filters will be very useful (been using a similar feature with atg dynamo for a while now). in fact, tomcat has a number of very useful features that are normally found in the pay-per-use java servers. when the new apache module (to tie the ws in with the js) is done, this will be a kick-butt combination!
anyone not already in the java server game should give this new beast a try. the sample application (structure and ant build config file) makes getting started snap!
don't forget to d/l CVS to keep your projects straight!
It's no use if you want to use it on your web site (Score:1)
Sun grants you a non-exclusive, non-transferable, limited license to reproduce internally and use internally the binary form of the Software complete and unmodified for the sole purpose of designing, developing and testing your Java applets and applications intended to run on the Java platform ("Programs").
Anyone know of a JVM that I can use for a production server?
Enterprise Class eCommerce Applications? (Score:2)
If not, why not? Why aren't there more OS projects that target these kinds of mission critical applications that the enterprise needs? It strikes me that if you want these kinds of capabilities from OS software, you are basically left to building them from scratch on top of something like JBoss/Tomcat, Enhydra, etc. Unless I'm missing something, there just doesn't seem to be any OS applications targeted at these important enterprise capabilities.
what is it that Tomcat 4.0 lets me do ... ? (Score:2)
Can someone tell me what is it that Tomcat 4.0 (or any other version) lets me do that cannot be done otherwise? I know there must be something for them to put all this effort into it, but I cannot see it. If you're tempted to say "well if you can't see it, you won't understand it" then I'll say you probably don't understand it for yourself and you're doing it for the fad value of it.
I want to know what the advantage is over say:
Unicode support (Score:1)
I hope it's much better than 3.x (Score:1)
There are still some concurrency issues under heavy load that makes it go belly up.
Besides it's not excactly lightning fast. We've seen factors of 10-20 times the performance on other Servlet containers.
Well, I guess that's what we've got innovation for!
-dennis
URLs containing help on Tomcat (Score:1)
In this vein, see an introductory article ("Server-side Java with Jakarta Tomcat") in Linux Journal (April, 2001) in the regular column, At the Forge.
Re:WOo.. (Score:1)
Re:Towards a 100% Katz Journal (Score:1)
But tell me something. Just why are you waiting for Jon on an Apache/Jakarta Tomcat thread?
No, I'm not a immediate relative, but I did go a birthday party of his once.
Regards,
Rich Katz
Re:J2EE 1-2 years ahead of .net (Score:1)
It would be nice if Sun released a free J2EE implementation for Solaris.
Apache vs. the world... (Score:1)
i'm glad to see that the Jakarta Project's latest release of Tomcat comes with more documentation and administrative tools than the earlier 3.x releases. Not that those were hard to install and configure, but when you're trying to get Management to let you use a product, it helps to have more warm fuzzy ways of doing things, than the old "well i can edit that config file and we'll be ready to go"
of course there are still some documentation pieces lacking, (like whats the WARP protocol?!?) but overall it seems a really good, well rounded release of the Tomcat product.
of course, i still havent found how i integrate tomcat into an existing web server other than Apache...
sigh (Score:2, Insightful)
I'll agree with you -- for pounding out web pages, it is much easier to do it in perl or php. But if that's all you want, then even perl and php are overkill. Why not just write static HTML pages?
JSP is useful when you need to talk to Java components to get real work done. If you are a web designer, then don't use it. But if you are working on a big project, then the web interface is probably the least important part of the whole thing. Java provides a much richer set of tools than perl or php for creating reusable business components, and JSP provides an easy way to stick a front end on top of that.
JSP scales a lot better than PHP/perl for mulitple developers, too. It sounds like you are more of a web designer than a programmer. JSP might make you feel unconfortable, because you wouldn't get to program as much, but the lines of responsibility are more clearly drawn. The guys in charge of the business beans would make up tags for you to use, and you could work on making the screens look pretty in Dreamweaver.
So what can you do with JSP that you can't do with PHP, Perl, ASP, etc? Talk to Java. That's what we want to do.
If you want to talk to a perl module, then use mod_perl or HTML::Mason. If you have COM objects, then use ASP.
JSP is just a front end! The decision has already been made, long ago, to go with Java for all of its obvious business programming advantages.
-Mike
very nature of dynamic scripting languages? (Score:2)
The problem is not the nature of dynamic scripting languages (which I take to mean languages that let you prototype quickly). The problem is design choices made in the particular languages you've looked at. BRL [sourceforge.net] has no problem scaling to more complex applications. And if you choose to prototype quickly and end up with "dirty" code in pages, cleaning it out is a mindless process, as I described in another comment [slashdot.org].
Re:JSP not that complex (Score:1)
It sounds like you're awefully angry and I'm sure there are people who will agree with you, but I'm not one of them. You say:
o "Anything you can do in JSP you can do in ASP and..."
I simply don't agree. The JSP/Servlet layer enables you to build systems using both extensible MVC framework and patterns plus use and XML. ASP doesn't. No such software design has been provided in ASP. Now ASP will be supported by OO languages and Microsoft has the opportunity to use and incorporate patterns. However the people responsible for ASP have spent the past five years ignoring the only OO languages Microsoft had: Visual Foxpro and J++. So its anyones guess as to whether ideas like MVC, cohesion, and decoupling are on their agenda yet.
o They are "insanely difficult to debug"
Have you considered that you're possibly making erroneous assumptions about what JSPs are or how they work? This is easy to do. Many people think JSPs are just kind of some sugar coated HTML. In fact, the lack of coherence in language design of such scripting facilities kept me away from them for a long time.
Also, I would think that your not being familiar with Java could make you seriously frustrated with JSP.
One of my early takes on JSP was that it was a way to avoid writing Java. When you instead look at JSP as a time-saving facade for programmers who actually *do* know Java, it takes on a completely different meaning.
o The hammer vs. nail thing and the "management loves it" thing.
Been there done that. These are "everyone here's against what I want and they just don't understand" positions. The hammer/nail thing applies to any new solution - there are going to be people who advocate using the same solution for everything, large or small - because that's what they know about. And "Management" is a word used by people who unfortunately have bad managers. (See bad-managers.com "True stories of disasterous projects and cowboy managers").
Both Hammer/nail and "management loves it" has be said about mainframes, about Microsoft and about Visual Basic.
Most recently, I've even seen it about C++. And before that C. And both attitudes helped kill the companies that held them.
Originally, although I was coming from a somewhat different place from you, I felt the same way about JSP - that it was designed to be "like" Microsoft's ASP and that was not the right approach. But now I think JSP has proved its worth. There are people who have been successful with JSP, have put a lot of time into it, and have benefited from it.
I'm glad you are successful with PHP. But there also going to be many who will resent you for calling JSP a "f_____ stupid technology." I don't think it's worth swearing at or asking others to "stamp it out" for you.
In fact, although I'm definitely not the worlds number one JSP advocate, I even resent your swearing and hostility at JSP and at Tomcat, since the fact that you put this in the Tomcat thread, and at all the people who have worked hard to make Tomcat work.
So, if it was your intention suck someone in with your negativity and make them upset just because you're upset at people you had to work with - then congratulations. You've succeeded.
My only advise is, express your feelings to them. Or let it go. Or both. There are too many good things to do and not enough time to do them to be stay hostile at a whole technology.
I'm sorry that it didn't work for you, and I do know the feeling.
Regards and best wishes,
Rich Katz