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LAMP Grid Application Server, No More J2EE 615

An anonymous reader writes "Check out this blog entry in Loosely Coupled about ActiveGrid's new open source Grid Application Server based on the LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP/Python/Perl) stack. Not to start another PHP vs. Java flame war, but it looks like LAMP is starting to grow up, and that it is much better suited for next generation applications than J2EE."
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LAMP Grid Application Server, No More J2EE

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  • by Alioth ( 221270 ) <no@spam> on Monday November 22, 2004 @07:14AM (#10886734) Journal
    Slashdot tends to put spurious spaces in long URLs making them useless. Please enclose them with the URL tag (note under the Comment text box, it tells you how to do this - just <URL:http://some.link.com/foo>

    Example:
    http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:AXRoWhcH5UIJ:ww w.looselycoupled.com/blog/lc00aa00074.html+lc00aa0 0074.html&hl=en [66.102.9.104]

  • Re:What the? (Score:1, Informative)

    by dylain ( 816413 ) on Monday November 22, 2004 @07:24AM (#10886775)
    Who said goatse was offensive? Philistine.
  • Slashdotted. (Score:2, Informative)

    by edooper ( 541467 ) on Monday November 22, 2004 @07:28AM (#10886792)
    Hope they don't run this on a LAMP server...

    Anyway, here is TFA:

    http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:AXRoWhcH5UIJ:ww w.looselycoupled.com/blog/lc00aa00074.html+&hl=en& lr=&strip=1 [66.102.9.104]
  • by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 22, 2004 @07:30AM (#10886802)
    first: i'm not a coward... ;)
    I'm miojo (at) javafree.com.br

    second: Is this blog hosted at a LAMP suite? Because I'm not getting the site openned here in my browser... ;)

    where is the scalability ?

    BTW, i'm a Java/J2EE programmer... ;)
  • by buro9 ( 633210 ) <david@@@buro9...com> on Monday November 22, 2004 @07:32AM (#10886808) Homepage
    The spaces aren't spurious.

    They are there to prevent trolls from stretching the width of the page by inserting silly long strings of text that lack breaks.

    Slash code adds spaces, and that enables the text to wrap, meaning you don't get an ugly and ill-behaving website.

    The point is... Add the tag or make it HTML formatted to make Slash know that it is a URL and to not only hyperlink it, but not to break it either in the hyperlink (but still in the render as we still don't want wide pages).
  • Re:Where to go ? (Score:5, Informative)

    by JavaSavant ( 579820 ) on Monday November 22, 2004 @08:14AM (#10886959) Homepage
    Who needs EJB when there's Hibernate http://www.hibernate.org/ [hibernate.org] and Spring http://www.springframework.org/ [springframework.org]. Persistence, Transaction Management, and SQL generation in one tidy package. And it works on any J2EE app server, no matter how lightweight or robust.

    Not that I have qualms with any attempt to provide these services in PHP. It's not a matter of having just one tool in your toolbox, but rather knowing which tool is right for which job. My only response to the original poster is "I don't want to start a flamewar, but if you aren't a sound enough engineer to know when to use which tool, you pretty much suck."
  • by puddpunk ( 629383 ) <puddpunk@gmail.com> on Monday November 22, 2004 @08:17AM (#10886969) Homepage
    Tomcat is the reference implementation for Sun's Servlet specifications (the last 3 versions running).

    Tomcat is an enterprise level, quality implementation of the servlet specification. We use it at work backending to a postgresql database and the traffic loads (and system loads of complex financial analysis) are high but Tomcat has been able to handle anything we through at it.

    So with a bit of clue learning to write xml config files you have a fast, efficient, standard-adhesive and supported servlet container for a price that can't be beat.

    FACT: Tomcat is a quality server :P
  • MySQL isn't suitable (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 22, 2004 @08:36AM (#10887051)
    MySQL isn't suitable for 'enterprise' - you'd really need PostgreSQL. I tried for years to use MySQL in that manner before giving up and trying PostgreSQL. Wish I had done so earlier.
  • by grey1 ( 103890 ) on Monday November 22, 2004 @08:45AM (#10887096)

    Forget about clunky PHP, try Mason instead [masonhq.com]. And use whichever db makes sense for you - for us it's often Oracle but then we've got the DBAs and experience to make use of it (oh and the licences...).

    And sometimes Java (even J2EE) makes more sense than working in Perl. Which is why we do that too.

    Choose the kit of parts that suits your application needs and the skills of your developers. And think about avoiding lock-in to a closed-source vendor. That has always seemed like a big risk for a project.

  • Re:What the? (Score:3, Informative)

    by GreyWolf3000 ( 468618 ) on Monday November 22, 2004 @09:58AM (#10887475) Journal
    MySQL recently has gained clustering support. Not that I'm contending that this is all that's necessary to be "enterprise ready" but it certainly is progress.
  • Re:Where to go ? (Score:2, Informative)

    by markroth8 ( 762728 ) on Monday November 22, 2004 @10:00AM (#10887488)
    ...there are no free (as in beer) quality servers

    Actually, Sun Java System Application Server 8 PE is free as in beer, and it is high-quality with good documentation:

    It is a fully compliant J2EE 1.4 application server that is free for development, production deployment, and redistribution.

    Disclaimer: I work for Sun.

  • Re:LAMP (Score:3, Informative)

    by v01d ( 122215 ) on Monday November 22, 2004 @10:03AM (#10887509) Homepage
    You're right: PHP doesn't natively support database abstraction. Every database you want to support has it's own set of functions and must be specifically compiled in. There is a PEAR class that provides an abstraction layer though...
  • Re:Still no TPC (Score:3, Informative)

    by GreyWolf3000 ( 468618 ) on Monday November 22, 2004 @10:05AM (#10887524) Journal
    Clustering support has recently been added to MySQL.
  • by boodaman ( 791877 ) on Monday November 22, 2004 @10:29AM (#10887704)
    Java is flawed? How, exactly? You do mean "flawed" as in "broken", right? Or do you mean "flawed" as in "doesn't handle every possible thing that might ever need to be handled, now and forever"?

    I do know one thing...the systems my company develops and sells could never be written in a "P" language. We tried perl and PHP and both failed miserably. Java works quite well, however. So from our perspective, Java is not flawed.
  • Re:In which world? (Score:5, Informative)

    by Lodragandraoidh ( 639696 ) on Monday November 22, 2004 @10:54AM (#10887907) Journal
    Zope kicks both of their [censored] IMHO.

    Zope has:
    Built-in object database (hence Z Object Publishing Environment - ZOPE).
    Built-in http server (Medusa), and ftp server.
    Ability to integrate with other http servers (i.e. Apache).
    Built-in scripting/application language (Python - and you can add Perl if desired)
    Built-in ability to connect to traditional relational databases, if needed.
    WEBDAV compliant.
    Built-in support for XML, HTML, DTML, TAL, TALES, METAL, and CSS.
    Ability to extend the environment by building modules that become integral to the site.
    Web client based development and administration - with access control built-in and fully configurable to your needs. If you can reach it from the network, you can develop and administer it.
    A large stable of free/open source modules that can be loaded (Plone - a full function CRM solution, Zwiki - wikiwiki web clone, just to name a few).
    Built-in ability to cluster a site across multiple machines (can be architected to serve behind an SLB for scalability, or in seperate geographical locations to provide local access to shared resources).

    This is the fastest development environment I have seen - bar none. The biggest benefit comes from the object database - you don't have to think about a logical or physical data model beyond the needs of your application - you don't have to worry about how structures are defined in the database. You can move your data structures inside of your scripts directly into the object database as-is without having to monkey with table structures and all of the other baggage a relational database carries with it. Once you understand and use the object database, you never want to go back. Of course, you can attach to SQL databases, and do the silly walk if needed.

    I set up a CRM solution using Plone that has been up and working for 6 months now with minimal time babysitting it. Adjunct to that, I have built several unique apps far quicker than our IT department could possibly accomplish using J2EE (we have several projects through that group that are years overdue and over budget - hence my move to Zope for internal development of critical support functions that can not wait).

    Among the principles behind the Agile Manifesto are several that are instructive:

    "Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software."

    "Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer's competitive advantage."

    "Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale."

    Zope has helped me be successful with all of the above. How do your tools measure up?
  • Re:In which world? (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 22, 2004 @10:57AM (#10887935)
    You said: Not to sound trollish because php and mysql are great for tiny websites and hobbiests...

    Umm, your not very good with php are you? Like any product you need to use it correctly, with the right set of tools to get it to work properly. Most people install php and dont do any optimizing whatsoever, and when their code runs slow blame php. First off, you need to compile php yourself, with only the options you need. Secondly, if you want to run enterprise PHP apps, you need Zend's tools. What, never heard of Zend? Oh, thats the engine php runs on. You see, there are a number of products that one should use with php to deploy enterprise applications: Zend optimizer, encoder and accelerator.
    Whats that you say? "Oh, those cost money! PHP is supposed to be free!". Well, yes, IF your a hobbiest, but if one plans to use PHP commercially, these are a must have.

    Don't complain about a tool untill you've spent the time to master it.
  • Re:What the? (Score:3, Informative)

    by Khazunga ( 176423 ) * on Monday November 22, 2004 @11:48AM (#10888356)
    Then, they're only missing these [sql-info.de]
  • Re:Free? (Score:3, Informative)

    by Doctor Memory ( 6336 ) on Monday November 22, 2004 @11:56AM (#10888433)
    He said free as in beer. JREs for all major platforms are available for the downloading (either from Sun or the OS vendor).

    OTOH, if you really want to add features to the JRE, there's no stopping you from extracting a class from rt.jar and replacing it with one you wrote. If you're really clever, you can even get a bytecode editor, change the name of the original class, then writing a new class with the original name that extends the original class, and only adds the new features you want...
  • Re:Free? (Score:3, Informative)

    by coyote-san ( 38515 ) on Monday November 22, 2004 @12:21PM (#10888682)
    I'm struggling to think of any reason why you would want to modify the JRE. That's comparable to hacking the gcc compiler or C library to add a new feature. It might solve a local problem, but will introduce numerous global ones.

    JNI is more than adequate if you only need to access external libraries.

    Language extensions could be handled by the C/C++ model - write a tool that compiles your "j++" code into standard java and then compile that.
  • Re:Use Lisp (Score:3, Informative)

    by heathm ( 174421 ) on Monday November 22, 2004 @01:00PM (#10889070) Homepage
    Not only has Zope driven people to Python, it has also driven many of us to contemplate suicide... but that is beside the point.
  • Re:In which world? (Score:5, Informative)

    by killjoe ( 766577 ) on Monday November 22, 2004 @01:22PM (#10889305)
    What ZOPE doesn't have.

    Ability to publish zope objects with SOAP
    CORBA support.
    Message queues
    Object relational layer
    transaction support for relational databases
    RMI or it's equavalent in python
    Common logging infrastructure (log4j)
    Timed services (cron like device for calling certain code)
    Naming directory. .... Many Many more thing that are in J2EE but not in zope.

    But what it lacks more then anything else is good documentation. Yes there are lots of products but the vast majority of them have no more then a one sentence explation.

    FInally a plea to whoever is reading this.

    I hate Java, please please please build a J2EE like container for python or ruby make sure it has everything I have listed above.
  • Re:In which world? (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 22, 2004 @01:42PM (#10889526)
    That's why people created Python.

    Ease of scripting languages combined with a clean syntax (easier to manage and maintain then Java), obect oriented model, and is as cross platform as Java or C.

    Good stuff.

    You can hook it up to databases, you can code speed-sensitive parts in C and use them as functions/modules. You can use stuff like Zope for a bunch of supported libraries of code and such.

    It's a win win situation.

    Hell you can even write multithreaded applications with python if you want.

    Most everybody is taught it in school now, it doesn't have licensing restrictions, it's free and has a deverse and active community behind it.

    It's easy and quick to learn and even lay people can have a shot at writing basic stuff in it.

    It's good stuff.
  • Re:In which world? (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 22, 2004 @02:30PM (#10889982)
    >"Built-in object database". Uh, yeah, java was OO last I checked.

    You apparently mis-understood this. Zope comes with ZODB, the Z Object Database. ZODB allows for persistant objects - i.e., your live python objects are transparently stored to disk and cached in memory for accessing them. You don't have to convert between other data format (SQL, csv, XML, whatever) in order to store/retrieve the objects. They persist as objects.

    So, of course Java supports OO programming. But that doesn't mean that high quality, free, object persistence system is available or included by default in J2EE frameworks.
  • Re:In which world? (Score:3, Informative)

    by adamfranco ( 600246 ) <(moc.ocnarfmada) (ta) (mada)> on Tuesday November 23, 2004 @11:10AM (#10898159) Homepage
    You see, there are a number of products that one should use with php to deploy enterprise applications: Zend optimizer, encoder and accelerator.

    For a free (at least as in beer) PHP extension to transparently cache the compiled version of you PHP scripts (instead of recompiling every page load), check out
    PHP-Accelerator [php-accelerator.co.uk].

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