been using webMethods for a couple of years now and something that I started thinking about is that there isnt any community effort to create a general utility package? Have googled it and only found a package called simpletoolbox for wM 6.1 . We have built our own “utility” package where I work, but noone seems interested in sharing it with the community. Am I missing something here? What is the reason there’s no community utility package? Do you have a “utility”-package at your company as well? What would you like to see in such a package?
That is a Good initiative but most of the places that i worked had util package which had custom services for that implementation and they were not reusable outside of that implementation.
Although there are some services which can be reused (services on files, dates, conversions, packages backup, list manipulations etc) but they are already available from either wmusers or from WmPublic or PSUtilites package. I think it would be more useful to compile the existing services (which are not available through those three places) in to a general Util package (supporting and licensing will be a pain).
With one of my previous employers the agreement was that, when I write any code (solution) for any client it will be owned by the client and the employer (as i will be using their WM licenses and other resources).
We have created a GeneralUtilities package of our own, based on our usages. I believe that every company may have a different set of reusable components, however PSUtilities give a very good list of util services.
Some time we develop custom reusable services and sometime we pick the reusable services from PSUtilities and deploy it as part of our GeneralUtilities, as I prefer to have only those services in production which are being used.
I agree that such a package is usually an indivdual one for every company.
PSUtilities (or PSUtilities2) is a good starting point. This evolved from SAG professional services, is used to be available via Advantage (don’t know yet where on Empower) and contains solution for a lot of typical problems which are not covered by the IS standard services.
As some of the services contained there have come to age and especially for the Java services there may be a better solution nowadays I recommend the following approach:
Create you own Utilities package.
If you find a service in PSUtilities usefull, transfer it to your package, check if it fits or may be enhanced.
If applicable change, enhance it.
Test it toroughly (even if you did not change it, PSutilities comes without warranty)!
If it passes your tests move it on to your environments