BEA has announced their first Apache Beehive Milestone 1 Release (M1). This milestone contains new controls (e.g. for Hibernate), can run on more platforms (e.g. JOnAS and Apache Geronimo), and expanded tools. The code has been placed in the incubator at Apache.

The new BEA open-source milestones scheduled to be showcased at ApacheCon US 2004 in Las Vegas through November 17 include:

• UPDATED APACHE BEEHIVE CODE RELEASE: Apache Beehive Milestone 1 Release (M1) which supports Java Controls, NetUI PageFlows, and Java Web Services with developer documentation and PetStore sample application, is now available. The project's M1 code release, developed in incubation at the Apache Software Foundation, means that developers using Apache Beehive and/or BEA WebLogic Workshop(TM) 8.1 can now contribute to the updated code base.
• APACHE BEEHIVE PLATFORM SUPPORT: Apache Beehive projects can now run on both JOnAS and Apache Geronimo in addition to Apache Tomcat, by being able to port any application built on Beehive to these various servers, Beehive can help protect IT investments for customers.
• ADDITIONAL APACHE BEEHIVE TOOLS: Apache Beehive now offers additional tools. Among them, a control for Hibernate -- an object/relational persistence and query service for Java. The expanded toolset provides developers building on BEA WebLogic Workshop 8.1 or Apache Beehive with increased ease-of-use and help improve productivity.

Apache Beehive M1: http://incubator.apache.org/beehive

Press Release: BEA Announces Open-Source Milestones for Apache Beehive

From the Beehive site:
"This is the project working on making J2EE easier by building a simple object model on J2EE and Struts."

I have been using Bea Workshop for a while. Based on that experience it seems like this is just another heavy weight framework that tries to hide the J2EE complexity by nice wizards and code generation.

For example, Page flow abstraction is much more simpler to use than direct Struts. However, it does support only very basic Struts features. If you need some extra Struts features (e.g. XML based validation), you have to use strange xml merge feature to get direct access to Struts.

I develop using agile methods (test driven development, refactoring etc.). When developing with Workshop it is very hard to follow these practices. Unit testing is hard and it is not possible to test controls outside container (see http://dev2dev.bea.com/products/wlworkshop81/articles/eckels_BP.jsp). Also refactoring is not supported at all. Hopefully, Beehive will somehow support these things...

IMO, good Java IDE (e.g. Eclipse) and the light framework approach (e.g. Spring) is much more better for making J2EE easier than Beehive.

Just my 2 cents...

Markus--

  You make some good points about the WebLogic Workshop 8.1 runtime, but I think you'll find that Apache Beehive has evolved significantly since then. :)

  To address your specific comments:

- Page Flow in Beehive supports quite a few more Struts features including a declarative validation model for commons-validator using JSR 175 annotations.
- Beehive controls are usable outside the EJB container, and in fact, you can write your own control container. We also have test infrastructure being built to host controls in tests.
- Apache Beehive is a server-side runtime and as such doesn't have IDE refactoring. Tools for Beehive artifacts (Pollinate, for example) could support these sorts of tool features, including refactoring, wizards, and code generation. Of course, you can always refactor manually. ;)

  Beehive applications can be built with emacs / vi / Eclipse and Ant.

  So, give the alpha a spin, check out the new features, and send comments along to the beehive-user list!

I propably take a closer look at it as soon as I have time. My fear was that Beehive would just duplicate Workhop features. As you pointed out, that is not the case.

Great news, also for Hibernate users: Apache Beehive now offers additional tools, including a control for Hibernate. This tool was created by Controlhaus, a collaborative effort between BEA and Codehaus -- an open-source project repository with a strong emphasis on Java. Additional controls for BEA WebLogic Workshop 8.1 can be found here.

More info here: http://www.jaxmagazine.com/itr/news/psecom,id,18783,nodeid,146.html