DWR and WebSphere Commerce - Is it Good Combination?

Question

My current task is to migrate a J2EE application (JDK5) that is using DWR for its AJAX capability, into WebSphere Commerce platform (J2EE 1.4, JDK1.4). In the WebSphere Commerce, the idea is for the AJAX to call commands those are written in Commerce platform. WebSphere Commerce has its own AJAX approach (powered by Dojo), but I am hoping I could avoid the learning curve and leverage existing knowledge on DWR.

I wonder if anyone has tried using DWR in WebSphere Commerce?

Any advice (re DWR & WebSphere Commerce), to get me started? or... is it better to learn WebSphere Commerce AJAX approach?

---- Please advice if more clarification is required via comments. Thanks a lot.

Answer 1

I haven't tried DWR yet but have used DOJO and jQuery both and on Websphere Commerce. IMO it doesn't matter which JavaScript library you use since it is any way going to call underlying Websphere Commerce Commands... Since you are already familiar with DWR I would suggest you to go with that instead of using DOJO which I feel is cumbersome compared to jQuery.

Answer 2

As with many aspects of WebSphere Commerce, the main (/only) reason to stick with their OOB Dojo implementation turns out to be the IBM sales team.

If you stray outside the IBM guidelines your CEO will go to some Commerce open day and see some whizzy 3D animated shopping basket and decide that he must spend some obscene sum of money to buy the latest featurepack and you'll be the poor sap who has to explain that the whizzy 3D animated shopping basket that he's just forked out for won't work because it conflicts with the jQuery actions on such-and-such page etc. etc.

I feel dirty offering the political answer on a technical site. Perhaps I have been turned to the dark side... But I've also been on teams that have ditched Dojo for the (at the time) far leaner jQuery libraries and watched the political carnage unfold later...