EAserver - EAF - PB - Web Services etc.

Author

EAF - PB - Web Services etc.

-jj-

2006-02-12, 8:24 pm

We use EAF, PB and Java.

I have the following questions:

1) We are looking into using web services for some tasks. What are the
details of current and future EAF support for web services? Where can I get
some documentation?

2) We are in the research phase and don't very much about web services yet.
Web Services as we understand are J2EE technology (but still not in the spec
yet). We plan to use JSP for now for the web interface. But we would like to
also be able to use Web Forms when PowerBuilder has support for them
(version 12 or whatever). So, if we use web services, are we going to be
able to use them from .Net? or are the .Net web sevices any different?

3) If we start building JSP pages, would it ever be possible to use Web
Forms in the future, meshing them together somehow? Or once we are in JSP,
do you think we have to stay with JSP (I am asking this as a technology
question but also in terms of feasibility. Otherwise, I know that anything
can be converted to anything if you have the time and the money).

4) Don't know very much about web forms either but are there any plans for
EAF to have support for Web Forms? If yes, what are the details?

We are new to this and some of the questions may not make sense. If so,
please point us in the right direction.

Chris Pollach

2006-02-15, 7:25 am

jj;

FYI: WebForms is a Microsoft ASP.Net 2.0 rendering of an application. It
allows a rich GUI interface in the browser with allot of other special
features (ie: interactive file sharing, etc). I would not expect the JSP
world to support this as this is specifically a Microsoft IIs & ASP plus
..NET Framework requirement.

What you need to do is decide if you want to put your investment in the
JSP approach or the ASP approach over the long term. PB 11 already has
WebForm and Winform support. I have been playing around with these since
early Alpha and they look most promising. Once you see this feature in
action - it really turns your eye on what can be done in a browser. Couple
this with the new IE 7 coming soon and it's a "dynamic duo" (holy web
Batman) to consider.

For the Web Services side, PB 9 and 10 (even better) do a good job in
consuming and hosting a webservice. These releases are based on the SOAP
java support. However, in PB 10.5, you will have the ability to use .Net
webservices or SOAP. The .Net implementation is more robust as it supports
things like variable headers, which the java version does not.

Regards ... Chris

"-jj-" <jj@jjcompany-nomorespams-.com> wrote in message
news:43ef9df6$1@foru
ms-2-dub...
> We use EAF, PB and Java.
>
> I have the following questions:
>
> 1) We are looking into using web services for some tasks. What are the
> details of current and future EAF support for web services? Where can I
get
> some documentation?
>
> 2) We are in the research phase and don't very much about web services
yet.
> Web Services as we understand are J2EE technology (but still not in the
spec
> yet). We plan to use JSP for now for the web interface. But we would like
to
> also be able to use Web Forms when PowerBuilder has support for them
> (version 12 or whatever). So, if we use web services, are we going to be
> able to use them from .Net? or are the .Net web sevices any different?
>
> 3) If we start building JSP pages, would it ever be possible to use Web
> Forms in the future, meshing them together somehow? Or once we are in JSP,
> do you think we have to stay with JSP (I am asking this as a technology
> question but also in terms of feasibility. Otherwise, I know that anything
> can be converted to anything if you have the time and the money).
>
> 4) Don't know very much about web forms either but are there any plans for
> EAF to have support for Web Forms? If yes, what are the details?
>
> We are new to this and some of the questions may not make sense. If so,
> please point us in the right direction.
>
>

Carson Hager

2006-02-17, 11:24 am

>>
> 1) We are looking into using web services for some tasks. What are the
> details of current and future EAF support for web services? Where can I
> get some documentation?
<<

The first thing I would say here is that web services are simply a way to
invoke application services over a network. That being said, a web services
API can be very tricky to deal with if the underlying arguments to the
service are complex which is definitely the case with EAF. As for today, we
support a full web services API primarily for use with our ASP.NET WebForm
client. We provide a full set of .NET binaries to facilitate using EAF with
WebForms. Frankly, this combination is quickly becoming my preferred way of
writing these applications due in no small part to VS.NET.

> 2) We are in the research phase and don't very much about web services
> yet. Web Services as we understand are J2EE technology (but still not in
> the spec yet). We plan to use JSP for now for the web interface. But we
> would like to also be able to use Web Forms when PowerBuilder has support
> for them (version 12 or whatever). So, if we use web services, are we
> going to be able to use them from .Net? or are the .Net web sevices any
> different?

Web services are not a J2EE technology specifically. They are an open
technology that originally came out of Microsoft, the original provider of
SOAP. SOAP was created years ago to get around the protocol issues of DCOM
but that's a story for a different day.

If you use web services today, you can always invoke them from .NET please
do your research. Simply exposing them as web services will not guarantee
compatibility. There has been a long battle of sorts between people in the
Java ( Axis ) camp and those in the.NET camp about the format of messages at
runtime especially around packaging. The document/literal combination is
considered to be the best way to publish web services but unfortunately,
that fell through the cracks when MS opted at the last minute to place the
body of the envelope inside an additiional element breaking interop. The
Axis folks in a surprising move towards interop have added a new style
called "Wrapped" that addresses this issue so that .NET clients can consume
Axis payloads.

All this being said, I will answer your question by saying yes - you will be
able to call them from .NET but that I am sure not saying that you will be
able to call them easily. There are a thousand variables here that we
couldn't possibly cover.

You mention the use of PB12 in the future. Theoretically, you will be able
to use these from PB12 but that is a long time from now and you can never
tell where technology will be.

> 3) If we start building JSP pages, would it ever be possible to use Web
> Forms in the future, meshing them together somehow? Or once we are in JSP,
> do you think we have to stay with JSP (I am asking this as a technology
> question but also in terms of feasibility. Otherwise, I know that anything
> can be converted to anything if you have the time and the money).

Can you use them together? Technically the asnwer is yes but you will have
to figure out some way to bring the sessions together using something like
SiteMinder or another SSO solution.

> 4) Don't know very much about web forms either but are there any plans for
> EAF to have support for Web Forms? If yes, what are the details?

We've supported WebForms for about a year now.

Carson

____________________
____________________
____

Carson Hager
Cynergy Systems, Inc.
http://www.cynergysystems.com
Macromedia Flex Alliance Solutions Partner

Email: carson. hager@cynergysystems
.com
Office: 866-CYNERGY
Mobile: 1.703.489.6466

"-jj-" <jj@jjcompany-nomorespams-.com> wrote in message
news:43ef9df6$1@foru
ms-2-dub...
> We use EAF, PB and Java.
>
> I have the following questions:
>
> 1) We are looking into using web services for some tasks. What are the
> details of current and future EAF support for web services? Where can I
> get some documentation?
>
> 2) We are in the research phase and don't very much about web services
> yet. Web Services as we understand are J2EE technology (but still not in
> the spec yet). We plan to use JSP for now for the web interface. But we
> would like to also be able to use Web Forms when PowerBuilder has support
> for them (version 12 or whatever). So, if we use web services, are we
> going to be able to use them from .Net? or are the .Net web sevices any
> different?
>
> 3) If we start building JSP pages, would it ever be possible to use Web
> Forms in the future, meshing them together somehow? Or once we are in JSP,
> do you think we have to stay with JSP (I am asking this as a technology
> question but also in terms of feasibility. Otherwise, I know that anything
> can be converted to anything if you have the time and the money).
>
> 4) Don't know very much about web forms either but are there any plans for
> EAF to have support for Web Forms? If yes, what are the details?
>
> We are new to this and some of the questions may not make sense. If so,
> please point us in the right direction.
>

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