Web application configuration on Tomcat using Spring

In order to get two sets of independent configuration (property) files, one for development and one for production, one can do the following:

In the web-inf folder place a property file, e.g. act.properties
In the applicationContext.xml define:




WEB-INF/act.properties
file:///${CATALINA_HOME}/act.properties

Birt versus Jasper Reports

My experiences as a new user with Birt and Jasper.

Birt

• A report grouped by week done within a one - two hours
• Built-in support for group-by week (special function)
• Adding JDBC drivers is easy

Jasper

• I get hopelessly lost in the NetBeans based IDE. I do not understand how to use the query builder and the report builder.
• Trying to build a report with group-by week is hard. No built-in support for weeks, just the standard java.util.timestamp functions. Trying to build an expression using day() results in weird validation errors (cannot cast from int to Integer()). With 1.5 you should not get this error anyway. Adding cast does not help. Bottom-line I do not understand the problem and the tool is not helping me to solve it.
• NetBeans based IDE looks a lot sharper as the 3.0 classic IDE.
• Selecting a SQL Server JDBC driver from dropdown result in classnotfound exception, you can select the driver, but it is not delivered with the product. You need to add your own drivers. Very confusing
• A report needs to get compiled. Makes it harder to work with. Probably results in better performance but should be optional.