[TerryD]

Hello,

I’m just gettin started in Java/J2EE development and would love for someone to clear this up for me. My employer has chosen to go with WebSphere as their applciation server to which I thought I could now easily choose WebSphere Application Developer (Rational Application Developer) for an IDE. That was until I saw the price of $5000+ Canadian. This is about where my knowledge level stops and the questions start.

1. Can Eclipse with the MyEclipse plugin (or other plugins) get me close to the functionality of WebSphere Application Developer?
2. If not, do you know by chance the key items that would be missing?
3. Could an application developed in WebSphere Application Developer be edited in Eclipse/My Eclispe and then redeployed? and vice-versa?
4. In your own opinion, is the 5g’s worth it?
5. Apart from cost, what would be the advantages to going with Eclipse/My Eclispe over WebSphere Application Developer?

Thanks,
Terry

[Scott Anderson]

Terry,

I’ll be glad to help out with your questions.

1. Can Eclipse with the MyEclipse plugin (or other plugins) get me close to the functionality of WebSphere Application Developer?

MyEclipse offers a large percentage of the functionality of WSAD, although certainly not everything. While we haven’t done a feature by feature comparison, anything you’re likely to use regularly, you’ll find in MyEclipse.

2. If not, do you know by chance the key items that would be missing?

I haven’t looked at WSAD in years and don’t know of a third-party comparison.

3. Could an application developed in WebSphere Application Developer be edited in Eclipse/My Eclispe and then redeployed? and vice-versa?

All IDEs, to one level or another, enforce some manner of project organization so that they can automate build, packaging, deployment, etc. WSAD and MyEclipse use similar project structures, but the metadata we keep about how things are organized is different. So, you can’t go from WSAD to MyEclipse or to/from any other product with zero modifications of the project structures. It’s simply an area for which there is no vendor independent standard. However, porting between the two tools, since they both have a concept of a Enterprise, EJB, and Web projects is rather straightforward. So, while it won’t be convenient to have some team members using WSAD and some MyEclipse, you can easily port from the WSAD project structure to MyEclipse’s (since ours is more flexible anyway) and then modify and redeploy.

4. In your own opinion, is the 5g’s worth it?

Naturally, you’ll get a biased reply by asking here. But I haven’t run into anyone that thinks that 5g’s is either remotely reasonable or worth it. However, the best way to tell for yourself would be to download our 30-day evaluation and give it a go. There are some nice quickstart tutorials in the Documentation Section to get you started.

5. Apart from cost, what would be the advantages to going with Eclipse/My Eclispe over WebSphere Application Developer?

How about support? Do you have the same sort of availabilty to dedicated support forums like you do here? Where even non-customers can get fast turnaround to basically any question? Second, I’ll toss in productivity. Unlike WSAD, we don’t recommend 2GB of RAM to run so you still have some room for your server to get a little RAM. We also have a lot of innovative features, like the ability to update your applications while they’re running (Sync-On-Demand deployment) without server restarts. That shortens the coding cycle way down and makes things very smooth. And, what if you have to ship on WebLogic someday? Or JBoss? Or one of the other 25+ servers we support?

One thing I will point out in fairness is that WSAD’s integration with WebSphere can’t be beaten because they use unpublished techniques to make it work. So, no external IDE could ever do quite as well. If you’d like an overview of getting a WebSphere 6 server setup in MyEclipse, check the using WebSphere 6 quickstart in the doc section I referenced above. In the end, all things considered, we’d rather you chose the right tool for your situation. The only way to do that is to try them both and see what works best. Naturally, I’d recommend that you try ours first. 😉

[TerryD]

Thanks Scott. The answers you provided were very clear.

Couple more questions. One of your answers provided a link for getting a WebSphere 6 server setup in MyEclipse. This is a question I think I now have the answer to but just to confirm, Eclipse with MyEclipse can be used to develop and test applications directly against WebSphere Server? Would it be correct to say that all I would need is a WebSphere Server? A single IP developer edition costs $1000, but that’s a lot less than $4000.

Thanks again,
Terry

[Scott Anderson]

Terry,

Eclipse with MyEclipse can be used to develop and test applications directly against WebSphere Server?
Would it be correct to say that all I would need is a WebSphere Server?

Yes, it can. We test agains Websphere Application Server 6, which can be downloaded from IBM here.

A single IP developer edition costs $1000, but that’s a lot less than $4000.

Wow! Really? I thought it was all the rage to give away developer licenses to keep market share. I’m a bit surprised they still charge for developer licenses. However, even if you have to pay $1000 per seat, at least that’s better than $4000.

Of course, another way to go would be to have the team develop against a free but J2EE compliant server, like JBoss 4, and buy a single developer license for “the guy” that would be responsible for tweaking / ensuring your product runs on WebSphere. Just a thought, but I’ve seen that done on many other teams in the past. You just have to be careful not to take advantage of any JBoss extensions to the spec, for example.

[TerryD]

Thanks so much Scott! You’ve provided me with a lot to think about 🙂

[Scott Anderson]

No problem. Please let us know if you have any other questions.

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