Chapter 2 Creating Component-Based Applications

Implementing components and clients

With the design in place, your component developers and client developers can begin implementing the clients and components that form the application.

Implementing components

To create a Java-CORBA or EJB component, use PowerJ or another JDK-1.1 compatible development tool to create the Java component. From PowerJ you can import the Java component definitions into Jaguar, and deploy the Java component on the Jaguar server. If using another development tool, you must perform these tasks with Jaguar Manager.

Bytecode must be compatible with the JDK 1.1 VM If you use a Java development tool, make sure that it compiles bytecode that is compatible with the JDK 1.1 virtual machine (VM).

To create a C or C++ component, generate skeletons using Jaguar Manager, code the method bodies in the method implementation templates, and compile and install the C DLL on the Jaguar server.

To create an ActiveX component, use an ActiveX-enabled IDE to create the ActiveX component DLL, import the ActiveX definitions for the component into Jaguar, and install the ActiveX component on the Jaguar server.

To learn how to develop PowerBuilder components, see the PowerBuilder documentation. To learn how to build other types of components, see these chapters:

Type of component	Chapter
EJB	Chapter 8, "Creating Enterprise JavaBean Components"
Java-CORBA	Chapter 12, "Creating CORBA-Java Components"
CORBA C++	Chapter 16, "Creating CORBA C++ Components"
ActiveX	Chapter 19, "Creating ActiveX Components"
C	Appendix D, "Creating C Components"

Design and implement the clients

Client developers can work concurrently with component developers. To allow prototyping and testing of client programs, you may want to create a client test server that hosts stubbed versions of the application components (that is, components with minimal method implementations).

Choose Client Types Before creating client programs, decide which of the following Jaguar client models best suits your needs, based on your preferred implementation languages and administrative requirements:

Java Java applets do not require customer installation and simplify the task of providing upgrades. The customer always downloads the most recent applet. If you do not want the customer to wait for the Java classes to download from the Jaguar server, you can install the Java classes on the client machine or use Marimba Castanet to speed up the download time.
If the client application is large and requires many Java classes, download time might be unacceptable. In this case, use a Java application that is installed locally on the client machine. This approach is ideal for intranet customers or even regular Internet customers. Although not as simple as providing upgrades with an applet, Java applications are no more difficult to upgrade than conventional software. In fact, Marimba Castanet can be used to automatically upgrade the Java application across the Internet.

Java IDEs such as PowerJ offer visual interface builders that greatly simplify the implementation of the user interface.
PowerBuilder PowerBuilder is a Rapid Application Development (RAD) environment that supports drag-and-drop user interface generation. You can implement PowerBuilder clients that execute Jaguar component methods using NVO proxies generated within PowerBuilder. As with C++ clients, the PowerBuilder runtime files must be distributed to each client workstation.
C++ C++ clients offer the proven performance of a native compiled executable. Some developers may prefer C++ user-interface generators such as Microsoft Visual C++. Finally, your company may have a large investment in existing C++ user-interface classes. C++ clients do require installation by the customer, however.
ActiveX If you are more familiar developing applications with an ActiveX-enabled IDE rather than Java, you can create an ActiveX client. An ActiveX client requires the same runtime installation as a C++ client, plus an additional step to register Jaguar's client proxy ActiveX interfaces.
Methods As Stored Procedures (MASP) Jaguar's MASP interface allows component methods to be executed as if they were database stored procedures. Any front-end tool that can execute Adaptive Server Enterprise stored procedures can execute Jaguar methods using the MASP interface.

In some situations, you might want to implement different versions of a client for different users. For example, you may implement a Java applet version to allow new customers to connect over the Internet without installing a client program. For established customers who use the application heavily, you can implement a standalone client program that offers improved performance.

To learn how to create PowerBuilder clients, see the PowerBuilder documentation. For details on on types of clients, see these chapters:

Type of client	Chapter
Java	Chapter 9, "Creating Enterprise JavaBean Clients" Chapter 13, "Creating CORBA-Compatible Java Clients" Appendix C, "Creating Jaguar 1.1 Java Clients"
C++	Chapter 17, "Creating CORBA C++ Clients"
ActiveX	Chapter 20, "Creating ActiveX Clients"
MASP	Appendix A, "Executing Methods As Stored Procedures"

Client Design Issues In designing your client, plan to optimize network performance by keeping traffic between the client and components on the server to a minimum. To optimize network performance, plan to:

Cache property changes in client data structures.
Validate field values on the client.
Update only the rows and columns that have changed. For example, do not implement a Java client to update an entire table when only a few rows have changed.
Group data changes into larger sets with fewer method calls.