How long has it been since I "bagged on java"?
Thanks, btw, for the help. I'm sure I've slammed java before sometimes with and sometimes without justification. I think I even complemented LimeWire as a java application. I don't like Java. It seems overly complex and, like much of the old VB6 codebase, is far too often poorly done. But I don't think I've ever been real harsh on jsp. I prefer PHP because it has fewer moving parts and does what I need it to do. I'll admit I've cracked on Java applications and the UI components and I stand by that. None of the Java applications I've ever had to use have worked well (iSeries Navigator, EnterpriseDB's admin tool, etc.) They tend to be clunky, feature lacking and slow - not to mention the myriad JDK incompatibilities. Again, that could be a developer problem, but given the complexity of the development platform, I think some of the blame can correctly rest with the architecture of that platform.
If you took the above "$DEITY help me" and "I hate having to ask this..." stuff as a slam to Java, it wasn't intended. I hate doing anything I'm this uncertain about and it appears to me that there is much more to do here than I know or even care to know about. For instance, in this case, the code change is trivial. All I'd have to do if this was PHP is make the code change. See, I'm really lazy. ;0)
I'm only trying to do this because the person here waiting for this to be done is a friend of mine and the Java consultants he hired (the original authors of this app) have been here for 2 billable days and still can't manage to synch up their local versions of tomcat, the jdk, the jdbcc connectors, etc. to actually do the work they were hired to do.
bcnu,
Mikem
Microsoft Vista. The best reason ever to buy a Mac.