DataSource, Inc. is now shipping Jetson 1.0, a J2EE automation toolset. Ten-year-old DataSource claims to have committed the last two years to tackling the problems of complexity, cost, and staffing associated with J2EE application development. It has made J2EE development easy enough for non-Java programmers, according to an IT Director interviewed by DevSource.

Paul Reynolds is IT Director for Hargrove Inc., a tradeshow and special events company that worked on the presidential inaugural. "We are 100% Microsoft (no Java)," said Reynolds. "We program in Microsoft .Net, Microsoft SQL Server, and some Microsoft Access. All of our systems are custom."

Reynolds got familiar with Jetson in its beta phase. He said DataSource asked for feedback from a non-Java shop, to see how effective the toolset would be for programmers with no Java experience.

"At the time, we didn't have an n-tier architecture implemented in our database system," said Reynolds. "As the company grew, we wanted to increase the capabilities of our database systems to match the needs of the company."

The company installed Jetson on one workstations. "My lead programmer, who is skilled in Visual Basic, C#, .NET, and SQL — and doesn't know a single line of Java — was able to understand with only a little tutoring," said Reynolds. "We took our existing SQL database and pulled the data right into Jetson which, at the time, was going to be called 'Jade.'"

"The cool thing with this technology is that even though Jetson builds Java code, one of the end products is Web services — Web services which are easily consumable by our applications," said Reynolds. "There is a high level of abstraction by this thing in the way they built it."

But did he buy it? Nope. "I have not even seen the gold code," said Reynolds.

It's a 100% Microsoft shop, remember?

"We like to get into the guts of our applications, and the fear was that if we ever had to pick apart the n-tier piece, it would be in Java, so we'd either have to learn Java or outsource it, which we don't like doing."

Hargrove was picked for its "worst-case" non-Java experience — not as the target market.

But for a shop that does Java, Jetson expands the pool of developers that can build J2EE applications. Joe Brinkman, CTO of DataSource, said, "Really good Java developers are expensive. Jobs are hard to fill. With the right tool, you just need to find somebody who knows programming... pretty much any programming."

Asked about other features, Brinkman said, "We make it easy to call the EJB-based business components using Web services or Java RMI."

Jetson supports common databases (Oracle, DB2, and SQL Server). Brinkman says, "Its meta-data architecture allows Jetson to manage the database for you without reacquiring the database administrator, so it simplifies database development by allowing you to focus on your logical data requirements, rather than the physical storage mechanisms of the RDBMS."

Brinkman claimed measurable productivity gains of 50% or more with the user interface because it doesn't require detailed knowledge of Java or J2EE for entering either data requirements or business rules. Jetson allows for Java code or components built outside Jetson through handwritten Java code snippets inserted inside the business logic. The company claims Jetson produces uniform, standards-based code.

Jetson 1.0 supports J2EE 1.3, which includes 17 sub-specs, says the company. The generated code can include Web Services which conform to the SOAP standard. Jetson supports automatic deployment of JBoss 3.2.x, WebLogic 8.1 and 6.1, and WebSphere 5.1 application servers. Available from DataSource, pricing ranges from $999 to $3,499. A downloadable trial version is available.