So far in this book we've been working with JBoss ESB from a command shell, and our tools have been ant and your favorite text editor. This is a valid and usable approach, but it has its limits. When you start working with more and more complex applications, editing .esb configuration files' raw XML can become difficult and error prone. Likewise, deploying .esb archives with ant, while straightforward, forces you to start the server manually, and remember to deploy and re-deploy as you perform development and testing.

Happily, there is another approach available to you. You can use JBoss Developer Studio (JBDS). JBDS is an eclipse-based integrated development environment. JBDS is fully integrated with JBoss AS, and includes a forms-based editor that makes it easier to read and edit jboss-esb.xml files. Additionally, it's free!

There is another version of JBDS that is bundled with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) JBoss' Enterprise Application Platform that is for sale. We'll use the free version throughout this book.