Now, just for the record, I'm talking about NB 5.5.1. Perhaps this has changed for 6.0.
Right now, Netbeans does a couple of "smart" things, and one "dumb" thing with regards to WARs.
First, it does do a directory deploy -- which is great.
Next, it has some awareness of what's changed, so that if you simply make, say, a JSP change, NB doesn't really do anything on the server -- it makes the change in place, and when you hit the page again, the JSP reloads and rebuilds. One of the nice things about GF is that it can precompile the JSPs on deploy, but you can still make JSP changes in place. I just wish we could easily compile JSPs in advance as well, but that's a different issue.
Anyway, if you make a class change, then NB will tell the container to actually restart the web app, since you need to reload the classes. So that's the other smart thing it does.
The only "dumb" thing it does is that it builds the WAR at this point, even tho, in theory, we don't need it. It DOES appear to be an incremental WAR update, but I'm not sure. But some would argue that this step need not be done at all, at least at this stage of development. So, that could shave precious seconds from the turnaround.
Now, NB 5.5.1 does NOT do an incremental, directory deploy of EARs. Those are rebuilt from scratch each time, and the container application restarted.
I think it would be interesting, specifically with EARs, if GF (since we're talking about GF here, really, not NB :-)) had the ability to incrementally redeploy EARs. Specifically, it would be nice if rather than restarting the entire EAR application when an embedded WAR changes, just restart the affected WAR. Basically, be more considerate about the level of the change and its affect on the restart. If I have a WAR in an EAR with 2 other WARs, and a bunch of EJBs, it would be nice to not have to reload the whole kit for a change in one component. Obviously, if you change something at the root, then you need to reload.
I think NB 6 is giving us directory deploys of EARs as well, but I'm not sure.
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