Requesting newer technologies

Question

Hi there, I'm working on a project which takes use of several technologies:

• Java
• JDBC Transaction Isolation Level
• Java Service Wrapper
• Log4j
• Apache Tomcat Webserver
• BIRT
• Apache Version Numbering System
• Apache ANT Build System
• SOAP

The software supports well known databases, such as MSSQL, MySQL, Oracle and DB2. The environment is subdivided in modules:

• A WebGUI to interact with the database
• A service to interact with the database through HTTP (create own forms and get a plain of formatted output of the result)
• A service to interact with the database though SOAP

Almost all services are offered in Tomcat via webapps. I'm pretty sure that we don't have the newest versions from those technologies. But I still wonder, if we could achieve the same with less dependancies. Anything new that could make our productivity more efficient?----

Answer 1

The dependencies you have listed are fairly well-established and standard technologies that all solve different problems.

I don't think you should be trying to reduce the number of dependencies. Any reasonably complicated website will (and should) have this many dependencies, so that they can harness the expertise folks who specialized in each of those areas, and so kindly packed their knowledge into freely available libraries. By all means, use them!

Modern websites are already so complicated that no single person knows how to build one from scratch, the same way nobody knows how to make a pencil.