The recently finalized Java EE 5 platform dramatically simplifies development of Java applications.
For example, no other programming environment in existence makes it as easy to access transactional resources - particularly relational databases - as EJB 3.0. The combination of plain Java classes, annotations and deep integration of a full-fledged O/R mapping solution leapfrogs all other contenders in this space.
Even better, EE 5 is designed for extension, so we expect to see a flowering of new open source frameworks built to run on and integrate with this new platform. Seam is a perfect example of what is possible here. The deep integration of EJB, JSF and jBPM would simply not have been possible in J2EE 1.4.
Well, it turns out that Seam has been recieved with enthusiasm. The user community is buzzing, with hundreds of Seam projects in the works, and the first crop of Seam applications going into production over the next couple of months. Seam 1.0 will be released in the next few weeks. In light of this success, we've decided the time is ripe to bring some of the ideas in Seam back to the JCP.
So we've been working with Sun, Oracle, Borland, Google and Sybase to put together
a JSR proposal for a new spec that will draw on ideas from Seam, Struts Shale and
Oracle ADF and push forward with the next layer of simplification of enterprise
Java. Today we submitted the Web Beans
JSR, which will address the problem of deeply
integrating EJB 3.0 with the web tier, including, to quote from the proposal:
* Definition of additional capabilities to be used with the EJB component model, allowing EJB beans to act as JSF managed beans in a JavaServer Faces application. * Definition of a unified annotation-based facility for manipulating contextual variables in a stateful, contextual, component-base architecture. * Definition of an enhanced context model including conversational and business process contexts. * Definition of an extension point allowing integration of business process management engines with the contextual component model. * Integration of Java Persistence API extended persistence contexts with the enhanced context model. * Collaboration with the JSF and Common Annotations for the Java Platform expert groups on the definition of Java annotation based metadata for JSF.
We're all looking forward to serving the Java community with this new work!
Read the press release here:
I look forward to what you come up with.
2. How much do you estimate will the final version differ from seam? And how many years will it take to finalize?
3. when will we get rid of the necessity to declare interfaces? will jboss enable something that is outside of the specification?
thanks, you and your colleagues do great work for everyone.
(2) I can't really answer those kind of questions at this stage, they are things you only know once you get into it...
(3) This will certainly come up in the next rev of the EJB spec, and I imagine that JBoss will have a proprietary solution pretty soon.
It would be a shame to look at the result of such proposal in 2 years from now and see that it is completely outdated...
I believe the java community can live without such JSR and STILL use Seam as a default component in their applications, as we have seen how fast Seam has grown.
I really hope you don't have to put your personal strenght on thinking and implementing another JSR while you have done such nice stuff without this need for "JSR-affirmation on how good some jboss projects and ideas are".
The Jboss projects are already powerful, you could leave the JSR groups to themselves...
Guilherme