If you will be developing components, you'll need to install
the Java 2 Platform Standard Edition on your system. Download
it for free at: http://java.sun.com/.
The latest version is recommended (Java 1.4.1 is current at this
writing).
Java. Openwings components should be written in Java so
that components can be executed across platforms. Java also provides
robust security features and ease of user interface development.
Ant. Openwings uses a cross platform compilation tool
called Ant to compile components. While not required, Ant is a
useful make-like utility that uses Java and XML build files to
perform platform-independent builds. These build files perform
compilation tasks and other build tasks all in the interests of
developing and deploying components. More details about Ant can
be found in the Compilation
section of this trail.
Ant is developed by the Apache Software Foundation, is freely
available and is easy to use. A very good manual can be found
at http://jakarta.apache.org/ant/manual/index.html.
Use the Editor of Your Choice. The Openwings team makes
no specific recommendation for an Integrated Development Environment
(IDE) tool. A simple text editor is often sufficient, and there
are cost, performance, and compatibility issues with many existing
IDEs. If you do use an IDE such as JBuilder, be aware of the drawbacks
associated with it. For instance, GUI code generation tools often
generate code that uses vendor-specific classes. This presents
a potential problem in service-oriented computing: since user
interfaces are distributed automatically, these vendor specific
classes must now be distributed along with the rest of your application.
The development hierarchy Openwings suggests using the following
directories when developing components. These directories reside under the
component root directory.
- bin - contains executable scripts
- lib - contains executable jar files
- docs - component documentation
- http - contains files to be served on a web server
- policies - component run-time information
- src - source code
- data - for any data files to be read or written during execution
The development hierarchy is discussed in more detail in the
Packaging Your Component
section of this trail.
Next: Naming
Conventions
