Everything You Wanted to Know about Seam, but were afraid to

[djfjboss]

I'm trying to learn about Seam but am having great difficulty getting a stable combination of JBoss AS, My/Eclipse, Seam. I've had varying degrees of success but nothing that seems to be robust. In all probability I am doing something stupid but I did come across this disconcerting one liner (on the JBoss site I think):

PLEASE NOTE: If you are using Eclipse 3.2, you CANNOT install JBoss IDE 1.6 or below. It will NOT work!

Could someone tell me which versions of the above components do work together and where to get them (this has also proven to be a bit of a wild goose chase).

Many thanks to anyone that's already been there and done that and can help point me in the right direction!

[ybxiang.wolf]

JBoss 4.2.1 works!!! I deployed seam prj successfully!

with JBoss 4.0.4, you must replace jboss/.../tomcat/jsflib/myface.jar,etc, with related JSF LIB.

JBoss 4.0.4 use myface(jsf 1.0), Seam2.0 use JSF1.2!!!

JBoss4.2.1 is ok!!!

[djfjboss]

I'm trying to follow the examples given in http://labs.jboss.com/jbossseam/gettingstarted but it all goes horribly wrong when I try to use the JBossEclipse IDE.
This refers to using Seam 1.2 with JBoss 4.0.5 via the JEMS 1.2 installer.
It also mentions Seam 1.3 which, as far as I can see from http://labs.jboss.com/jbossseam/download/index.html, does not even exist.

Seam 2.0 plus JBoss 4.2 may be an alternative but, reading the installation manual for JBoss, it isn't clear if not using a JEMS installer leaves you with a lot of manual configuration to do. I simply want to install a JBoss AS, get the Seam hooked up with it and develop a simple application within Eclipse, a modest and common requirement I would have thought.

JBoss 4.2.1 may work (for you) but it uses Seam 2.0 which is beta which rather puts me off. The idea of hacking some jars whose purpose is unknown to me is even less appealing. Is there not a stable version/combination of these elements that actually works? If not, then maybe I need to look elsewhere. I am looking to evaluate Seam/EJB3 which looks/ed an interesting combination but so far it does not seem to be living up to expectations - it seems very painful and fragile, or maybe I'm doing something wrong, hence my appeal. If anyone out there has had success with this combination I'd be very grateful if they would take some time to clearly outline the steps that are involved or, if it's already written down, point me to what I'm clearly missing.

Thanks again.

[maxandersen]

so if you don't like to combine things yourself why don't you just try and download RHDS which contains all these things in a tested setup.

Of course that is still Beta1 but for war's it definitly works straight out of the box.

[djfjboss]

It's not that I don't like to combine things myself but rather that I was hoping it would not be such a maze and guessing game. A clear, accurate and up to date guide to getting a basic configuration up and running would greatly assist those of us taking a look at these, almost certainly, key pieces of technology. http://labs.jboss.com/jbossseam/gettingstarted is a very good start but the Eclipse plug-in side of things is a little vague. After all, the name of the game, from my application development perspective at least, is software development and these tools should help us get to that point quicker rather than being a significant obstacle in themselves. It's not that I can't be bothered to RTFM - I don't know where the FM is!

Eclipse is the Java IDE of choice within my company and that is a constraint I was hoping JBoss/Seam would be able to accommodate. Given the prevalence of Eclipse in the marketplace, I don't think it's an unreasonable expectation and the existence of the JBoss Eclipse plug-in would seem to confirm this. If it is unreasonable, a clear statement from JBoss on what actually does work would be helpful.

Given that you represent JBoss I would have hoped for some more specific answers to my questions, this would be of great help not only to myself but to anyone else evaluating these technologies; that would still be appreciated.

[djfjboss]

The trials and tribulations of another prospective user don't fill me with optimism, stating 'although JBoss Seam does promise productivity gains, it is still very much "configuration hell"': http://chiralsoftware.com/blog/JBoss-Application-Server-with-Java-6-ab298ea104a78da7.html

[maxandersen]

I never had any issues following the Getting Started Guide in the Seam docs. It lists what version of JBoss AS it works best with for the given release.

The page says 1.3 but should actually say Seam 2. I'll get that fixed.

Red Hat Developer Studio is based on eclipse, but if you are not allowed to use any additional plugins then I guess that won't help you much.

[maxandersen]

I use Seam 2 and seam-gen works fine with JBoss 4.2 here.

Seam 1.2 works fine with JBoss 4.0.x - just like described in the docs....I don't know how much clearer we can be on that.

RHDS comes with a seam-gen with Seam 1.2 that works with the JBoss 4.2; again if you want a fully working out of the box solution go get RHDS.

[bakuzozi]

I use Seam 1.2.1.GA with JBoss IDE 1.6.0.GA with JEMS Installer 1.2.0.GA (AS 4.0.5.GA, ...etc.) with either Sun Java EE SDK build 1.5.0_09-b03 and BEA JRockit R27.2.0-jre1.5.0_10 versions...

Though Ant 1.7.0 is usable only from commandline and I occured few exceptions, when started AS, but much of these I managed with copied of lossly jars and only one remain, what did not cause trouble. And lot of exceptions when shutdown AS... (after dead what does it matter?)

I started my project from booking example, that way in Eclipse new project from ant build file...:-)

It's not fine, but works
and to use Seam yet in this manner to worth while for me!

I'm waiting for RHDS release too!!!

This help for you...?

[ybxiang.wolf]

"BakuZozi" wrote:
I use Seam 1.2.1.GA with JBoss IDE 1.6.0.GA with JEMS Installer 1.2.0.GA (AS 4.0.5.GA, ...etc.) with either Sun Java EE SDK build 1.5.0_09-b03 and BEA JRockit R27.2.0-jre1.5.0_10 versions...

Though Ant 1.7.0 is usable only from commandline and I occured few exceptions, when started AS, but much of these I managed with copied of lossly jars and only one remain, what did not cause trouble. And lot of exceptions when shutdown AS... (after dead what does it matter?)

I started my project from booking example, that way in Eclipse new project from ant build file...:-)

It's not fine, but works
and to use Seam yet in this manner to worth while for me!

I'm waiting for RHDS release too!!!

This help for you...?

~~~~~~~I am waiting too! shake hands! hahahah...................

[ybxiang.wolf]

I use Seam 2 and seam-gen works fine with JBoss 4.2 here.

Seam 1.2 works fine with JBoss 4.0.x - just like described in the docs....I don't know how much clearer we can be on that.

RHDS comes with a seam-gen with Seam 1.2 that works with the JBoss 4.2; again if you want a fully working out of the box solution go get RHDS.

~~~~~~~~~yes, i test them many times! JBOss4.2.1+Seam is ok!!!

[djfjboss]

One week on and some success but a lot of failure.

Seam looks to me to badly frayed at the edges, it is far from robust or even consistent, giving bizarre errors for minor changes, and I have to say it seems more hype than reality at the moment. A nice idea, just a shame that it doesn't seem to work very reliably. There appear to be a million and one paths by which one could go about getting a simple HelloWorld up and running, only one of which works. The challenge apparently is to find that path.

As an alternative to using Eclipse I tried to download RHDS from http://www.redhat.com/developers/rhds/ but get a server error just to rub salt into the wound.

None of this is very helpful or reassuring. If the community are to use these technologies it should be straightforward to create a HelloWorld application out of the box. After that it's down to knowledge of the associated technologies (which admittedly I need to gain - but this is proving to be a catch-22) and development ability (which I have).

[maxandersen]

New Seam Web Project

Right click > Run on server....

There is your hello world.

[ybxiang.wolf]

I think you should study "seam_reference" and Michael Yuan's book about seam. I failed many times as you before i study those two books carefully.
Once you mastere Seam, you will love it!!! Trust me.

"djfjboss" wrote:
One week on and some success but a lot of failure.

Seam looks to me to badly frayed at the edges, it is far from robust or even consistent, giving bizarre errors for minor changes, and I have to say it seems more hype than reality at the moment. A nice idea, just a shame that it doesn't seem to work very reliably. There appear to be a million and one paths by which one could go about getting a simple HelloWorld up and running, only one of which works. The challenge apparently is to find that path.

As an alternative to using Eclipse I tried to download RHDS from http://www.redhat.com/developers/rhds/ but get a server error just to rub salt into the wound.

None of this is very helpful or reassuring. If the community are to use these technologies it should be straightforward to create a HelloWorld application out of the box. After that it's down to knowledge of the associated technologies (which admittedly I need to gain - but this is proving to be a catch-22) and development ability (which I have).

[djfjboss]

Yes, I do begin to think it's a case of RTFM (a quaint English expression meaning Read The <expletive deleted> Manual, in case you're not familiar with this). Unfortunately it's not too obvious to the newcomer which is the best 'M'. I've read most of the Nusairat book which is very badly written and not at all clear, I've read a third of Yuan which is quite a bit better and I've just started on Jim Farley's book which, so far, is very refreshing in that it actually explains things and I now begin to see what it is that Seam is doing rather than having to infer it by reading between the lines.

I do still think that Seam has a lot to offer and shall persevere with the learning curve.