Skip to main content

Exploring Java EE 6

I have been using, learning and writing about Spring framework for last 5+ years now. It has done loads of good work to simplify life back in J2EE days. But off late I am seeing and participating in discussions where I see a transition back to the platform again. The reason being the Java EE 6 has adopted good ideas from frameworks like Spring, Hibernate etc and have come out with a lean and thin platform. This has not gone unnoticed in developer world.

Also in last couple of years Spring’s evolution has a framework has stalled to an extent. The core framework and extensions viz Spring MVC, Security etc being stable the guys at Spring Source have focused more on servers, OSGi, cloud and adding more products to Spring Source portfolio via acquisition route. The company itself was acquired by VMWare. So lots of things happening but nothing new or exciting enough in the core area to keep the developers attracted. This is really one bad thing that runs deep inside the Java developers’ veins. They are always in the lookout for something exciting new and better. This makes them restless to search for alternatives. The moribund around the core Spring and extensions stack and gradual evolution of Java EE 6 in the same time has acted as the new catalyst for excitement in the Java EE world.

I thought that this senior and experienced developers are showing interest for definite reason. I have been reviewing and reading about Java EE 6 for last few days and found it interesting, making things easier and I have a feeling that if you have half decent team Java EE 6 can cut down on development time significantly. So I thought of starting to explore this in greater detail. I have also got hold of the patterns book by Adam Bien and reading it. All in all things are looking good for the platform. I had a hard and reluctance to move to Spring from J2EE(I was a big fan of EJB in those days). But now I want to explore and make a quick transition back to Java EE 6.

I have decided to build some useful application to try and test all the different new features of Java EE 6. The application that I am trying to build is similar to OSCOMMERCE (http://www.oscommerce.com/), possibly a clone of this great application. I will try to build as many features as I can when I have time. Initially I thought of using Geronimo 3 for this, but I had to stumble upon some JSF issues possibly not compliant with JSF 2 and decided to switch to JBOSS 6M5 instead. Both these servers are very new in supporting the Java EE 6 specifications and catching up with documentation. Glassfish 3 seems to be there for sometime ready with Java EE 6. But since lot has already been written about Glassfish (including books from Apress), I thought its worthwhile exploring JBOSS (and later possibly Geronimo). Also I am a bit sceptical about the future of Glassfish. JONAS is still on Java EE 5. Before I end, here is the link to the JSF 2 and Geronimo 3 issue which I posted:

http://primefaces.prime.com.tr/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=5635&p=24048#p24048

In my next post I will set up the development environment for Java EE 6 with Eclipse Helios 3.6.1 and JBOSS. Stay tuned!. The road will be pure Java EE 6 and then possibly some other frameworks if needed.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Breaking down the CRM monolith

In my previous posts, I have shared some theory regarding microservices. But it's time to start some implementation. I love to write code and see and feel things working. So I will start a series to refactor a monolithic CRM system and transform it into microservices based flexible software. Big ball of mud. Customer Relationship Management(CRM) is that giant software which existed since time immemorial and is used by all companies in some form or shape. Big enterprises will buy CRM software (also known as packages) from top CRM vendors like Oracle, SAP, Salesforce etc and then employ an army of consultants to try and implement it. Most of the classic CRM systems in the market today, even if deployed on the cloud are the big monolithic ball of mud. They are the gigantic piece of software with the huge feature set. Most often those requirements are surplus to the requirement or they will not fit into the processes of the company. So the company has to hire these certified consu...
1 comment
Read more

Part 3 - Integrating Tiles, Thymeleaf and Spring MVC 3

In this post I will demonstrate how to integrate Apache Tiles with Thymeleaf. This is very simple. The first step is to include the tiles and thymeleaf-tiles extension dependencies. I will include them in the pom.xml. Note we wil lbe using Tiles 2.2.2 Listing 1 - parent/pom.xml --- thymeleaf-tiles and tiles dependencies <!-- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ --> <!-- Tiles --> <!-- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ --> <dependency> <groupId>org.apache.tiles</groupId> <artifactId>tiles-core</artifactId> <version>${tiles.version}</version> <scope>compile</scope> </dependency> <dependency> <groupId>org.apache.tiles</groupId> <artifactId>tiles-template</artifactId> <version>${tiles.version}</version> <scope>compile</s...
5 comments
Read more

CKEDITOR 3.x - Simplest Ajax Submit Plugin

  I have assumed that you have downloaded and got started with CKEDITOR. Step 1 – The html file is shown below: <html> <head> <title>Writer</title> <meta content="text/html; charset=utf-8" http-equiv="content-type" /> <script type="text/javascript" src="ckeditor/ckeditor.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="js/jquery-1.4.2.min.js"></script> <style> .cke_contents { height: 400px !important; } </style> </head> <body> <form action="sample_posteddata.php" method="post"> <textarea id="editor" > </textarea> <script type="text/javascript"> //<![CDATA[ CKEDITOR.replace( 'editor', { fullPage : true, uiColor : '#9AB8F3', toolbar : 'MyToolbar' }); //]]> </script> </form> </body> </html> Note that the jquery js...
3 comments
Read more