Java developers

I'm faced with a decision to make at work. We've been using Resin 2.1 for several years as our servlet container, mostly because three years ago when we were first 'breaking into' Servlets/JSPs, that seemed the most performant platform, and a "safe" buy to get support (at $3000, it seemed well worth it just in case we ever ran into an issue).

Now, we're a major revision behind, since Resin 3.0 has been out for quite a while. I've played around with upgrading to this version, but there's enough things done differently that it hasn't worked for me yet.

I've also seen a couple bugs in session management with Resin that make me unsure if I want to stick with Resin as a platform anyway (I see session ids being reused almost immediately, and I've found what I believe are race conditions where sometimes users seem to be getting sessions with data already in them - I can't prove it yet, but my application logs really do seem to be pointing towards that). So, I'm pondering moving to Tomcat/Catalina.

So, since 2001, has Tomcat matured enough to be a serious platform? Is it just as performant as a commercial engine? I'm not obsessed with performance, hardware is cheap, but I don't want to see a huge hit.

So, I'm rambling on... but has anyone out there used Tomcat enough to have a good opinion on whether this is a path I can recommend to upper management? I need to defend this use of my time somehow if I do decide to go that route.

Does anyone know what kind of java is on a mac (I've been asked, and don't know)?
(eg sun's java, ibm's java, ...)

In this post, I am including instructions for setting up java in order to be able to run things on our own computers as well as remotely on school's computers. But they are instructions for Windows users, and I am a mac user. So the question is, what do I need to do with the line in the build.xml file that says:
property name="java.runtime" value="${java.home}/jre/lib/rt.jar"/

( Instructions windows users were given for downloading javaCollapse )
( What is inside their java downloadCollapse )
( And then they are instructed to setup windows environment variables for javaCollapse )
So that in the end they can refer to this simple name in build.xml
( build.xmlCollapse )

Here is where I need to know JAVADIR:
( batchrun.sh wrapper codeCollapse )

I just received this email from the guy who is helping me back at school:

ok, we know where java is, and we know that macs
(probably) have things set up a bit differently.
that's unfortunate, but probably we can add things to the
ant build file to accomodate that.

however, it may be easier to just download
the sun java as described on our web page
(http://www.cscs.umich.edu/lab/documentation/RePastStuff/setup-repast.html).
then you'll know where things are, and you'll be using the
same thing other repast users (and we) are using, *and*
your build.xml will be the same on your mac and on cscs.

have you visited that sun page?
does it have instructions for downloading to macs?
(you have to be a bit careful to be sure it does NOT
download over the java you already have!)

Does this sound like a good idea (to download sun's java)?
He recommends that I download J2SE 1.4.2. I can't see anything
platform-specific at the sun site: http://java.sun.com/j2se/.

This seems a little scary, but I don't know...

Hey, wondered if you guys could help me out with this problem - currently I got a list
And you can traverse it, pick an entry, etc
What I need is a textbox associated with the list, that once I am typing in this textbox, the list automatically is scrolled and the first entry that starts with the string that I have typed up by now gets the cursor on it, or highlighted. So the textbox assists in searching what can be a several thousand lines long list.
Anybody have seen something like this/got the source/any advice?

Thank you in advance very much