1 Reply Latest reply on Sep 22, 2003 7:10 PM by jonlee

    How difficult is it to set up and configure JBoss?

    alexb

      As a software developer, I must admit that I'm not thrilled when it comes to twiddling many knobs in order to make a software product work. I'm always in favor of choosing the typical configuration right out of the box, and trying to work with it. Only if I determine that the vanilla configuration won't cut it for me, would I roll up my sleeves and start twiddling the knobs (i.e. configuring the product).

      Many promising products (mostly the ones coming from the open source community) unfortunatelly tend to adopt exactly the opposite approach. Products such as Jetspeed, for example, require you to devote days to learning how to even get it to start and display the simplest portal you've built. In other words, these products bear the signs of being developed by the propeller-heads for the propeller-heads (or, in more dignified terms, by the engineers for the engineers).

      Since my time is precious (I get hired to developing applications, not to tweak the configuration files), I don't intend to waste it on playing with the knobs that come with the majority of such products. Imagine if every morning, in order to start your car, you're expected to go through a complicated ritual of rewiring and messing with the internals of your car's engine. That wouldn't be deemed very practical, wouldn't it? Besides, it would definitelly not boost the car sales overall.

      But for some reason, when it comes to software products, such complications are deemed almost desirable.

      Anyhow, my question is this: how intuitive is it to install and set JBoss up? Do I need to turn it into a career, or can I expect to have it up and running (and serving the apps) in one afternoon?

      I always like to compare a product, such as Resin web server, to some other less friendly products. Resin comes with only one configuration file (resin.conf), which is very straightforward, as opposed to dozens of config files that come bundled with open source products such as Turbine (just to give an example off the top of my head). To me, Turbine is a very hostile product, as it expects me to remember to visit all those fractured XML files and edit them. It is very taxing on my short term memory, which is why I've decided to ditch it after spending some hellish time with it.

      Can I expect JBoss to be more friendly and understanding towards my limited free time and short term memory? What's your experiences?

      Thanks.

      Alex

        • 1. Re: How difficult is it to set up and configure JBoss?
          jonlee

          JBoss works out of the box. If you want to tweak various things (Tomcat or Jetty services), then you need to start configuring the various files.

          You will need to install a connection pool configuration if you are intending to use a database for your applications. However, there are templates vaialble for the major databases, that you can copy into the deployment directory and modify.