Thanks a million Gary, that does clear up allot!

Elaboration on point number 4:
What about static constants in a JB or EJB to indicate valid
values allowed for a bean property?

Sorry about number 3, but it should read the following:
I am aware that a Beans should have a public default constructor to be
considered a true JB, but what happens in the case of true inheritance using
JBs, should I need to include the call to super() to force initialization of
object variables (setting default values) in the parent class?

Once again it is great to know that there are people out there that can help
a person like me on the right path!

Regards,
Francois

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Hi Francois,

depends on whether or not you are talking enterprise Java-Beans (aka EJB) or
plain vanilla java-beans (JB). The answers are:

1) Can contain logic AND data for JB. For EJB generally "session" beans
contain logic, and "entity" beans are for data representation.

2) You can extend classes with JB and EJB; although creating complete
inheritance hierarchies is best suited for JB.

3) ? No (3)

4) Generally statics are used for constants or to singleton references.
According to the EJB specification you should not use static variables (or
threads or access the file system) with EJB's.

Hope this is of some use.

Gary