Book Image

JBoss AS 5 Development

Book Image

JBoss AS 5 Development

Overview of this book

JBoss AS is the most used Java application server on the market meeting high standards of reliability, efficiency, and robustness and is used to build powerful and secure Java EE applications. It supports the most important areas of Java Enterprise programming including EJB 3.0, dependency injection, web services, the security framework, and more. Getting started with JBoss application server development can be challenging; however, with the right approach and guidance, you can easily master it and this book promises that. Written in an easy-to-read style, this book will take you from the basics of JBoss ASósuch as installing core components and plug-insóto the skills that will make you a JBoss developer to be reckoned with, covering advanced topics such as developing applications with JBoss Messaging service, JBoss web services, clustered applications, and more. You will learn the necessary steps to install a suitable environment for developing enterprise applications on JBoss AS. Then, your journey will continue through the heart of the application server, explaining how to customize each service for optimal usage. You will learn how to design Enterprise applications using Eclipse and JBoss plug-ins. You will then learn how to enable distributed communication using JMS. Storing and retrieving objects will be made easier using Hibernate. The core section of the book will take you into the programming arena with tested, real-world examples. The example programs have been carefully crafted to be easy to understand and useful as starting points for your applications. This book will kick-start your productivity and help you to master JBoss AS development. The author's experience with JBoss enables him to share insights on JBoss AS development, in a clear and friendly way. By the end of the book, you will have the confidence to apply all the newest programming techniques to your JBoss applications.
Table of Contents (20 chapters)
JBoss AS 5 Development
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
Preface
8
Developing Applications with JBoss and Hibernate
Index

Installing Eclipse


Eclipse is the most popular environment for developing Java Enterprise applications. You can explore the Eclipse universe at www.eclipse.org.

The download area is reachable at http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/.

As you can see, there are several distributions available—what we suggest for your best programming experience is the Eclipse IDE for Java EE Developers. This will cost your hard disk a bit more in terms of space, but your productivity will benefit a lot from it.

Now choose the distribution that's appropriate for your OS. Once the download is complete, Windows users can simply unzip the eclipse-jee-galileo-win32.zip, while Linux users can use the tar command to uncompress the .tar.gz archive.

tar -zxvf eclipse-jee-galileo-linux-gtk.tar.gz

Unzipping the archive will create a root directory named eclipse. In that folder, you will find the Eclipse application (a big blue dot). We recommend that you create a shortcut on the desktop to simplify the launching of Eclipse.

Running Eclipse is simply a matter of executing the following command:

eclipse

This command is executed from the root directory of Eclipse.

When you launch Eclipse, you'll be prompted to enter your workspace location. That's the repository where your projects are stored. If you check the option Use this as the default and do not ask again, Eclipse will not bother asking you about your workspace location every time you launch Eclipse. However, you can change it from the menu at anytime, by going to File | Switch Workspace | Other.

Tip

How much memory should I give to Eclipse?

By default, Eclipse will allocate up to 256 megabytes of Java heap memory. This should be enough for most development tasks. However, depending on the JRE that you are running, the number of additional plugins you are using, and the number of files you will be working with, you could conceivably have to customize Eclipse settings.

Open the eclipse.ini file located under the Eclipse home directory, and add the following lines before starting Eclipse:

-vmargs -Xms512m -Xmx512m -XX:PermSize=128m -XX:MaxPermSize=128m

The above configuration is suggested for a machine running 1024 MB of memory. As performance boost, you should consider also turning off some inessential options such as:

  • Uncheck the Enable Capture option in Window | Preferences | Usage Data Collector.

  • Still under Eclipse Preferences, in the Validation menu, turn on the Suspend all validators option.

  • Ignore the spell checking features by checking out the Enable spell checking option in Window | Preferences | General | Editors | Text Editors | Spelling.