Introducing EE4J – Java EE's fling with the Eclipse Foundation

It's been a few weeks since it was announced that Oracle would move Java EE to the Eclipse Foundation and we're already starting to see indications of how it's shaping up. It was clear that something had to happen. Oracle was struggling to make the best of Java EE, which was reflected in the usage stats. The technology wasn't …

[Anonymous Coward]

Focus on key strengths...

The problem with the whole EE approach - in my opinion - is that Sun tried to push Java into every imaginable direction, even if that meant turning it into something it's actually not. One of the main problems which the whole approach is that the environment can be tedious in comparison to the other alternatives.

If I want to program in PHP then all I need is the Apache webserver with the PHP plugin. If I want to program in ASP.NET (my personal favorite) then all I need is either IIS ("one size fits all") or Apache with the mod_mono plugin (and Mono of course). Although this setup does use Mono as a backend (or separate application service) it's still a "one size fits all" kind of solution because I don't have to tinker with any backends, Apache is mainly calling the shots so to speak.

Java not so much. Now, I can utilize Tomcat or Glassfish for all my contents but seriously... That's not even remotely usable as a webserver, because it lacks a lot of things which you'd normally expect to find there. So you're more or less forced to using 2 environments. Your webserver and the application server backend. 2 environments to maintain, tune and optimize.

My other gripe is that a Java environment isn't really very flexible when it comes to webdesign. It heavily relies on frameworks to get the functionality onboard, but in the end it still feels somewhat of a hack to me. For example: I can't easily set it up that one webpage should be considered a master template of some sort which should always be included by everything else.

That is: you can easily include extra contents, but its always pretty static. You can work your way around all that (session beans come to mind) but if you compare that to the ease of use which both PHP and ASP.NET can provide here then Java gets a bit mediocre.

Now, that's not saying it's all bad, which is also why I mentioned key strengths. I think Java can seriously excel when it comes to building webservices. You don't have to worry about design, you don't have to worry about contents too much but mostly usability and remote access. Thats a Java concept I actually do heavily enjoy using.

And I think that might be their best bet: start by focusing on the things Java is currently good at and try to work around it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Focus on key strengths...

Why the emphasis on webdesign? We use a large number of Java programs that have nothing to do with the web. Their redeeming strength is that they will run on any OS that has a JRE.

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope Eclipse learn how to use version numbers

Might be a move in a good direction, but the Eclipse Foundation really like to confuse things when it comes to versioning.

I can foresee a future trying to work out if something written to an EEJ4 Ganymede specification will work on EEJ4 Luna or EEJ4 Europa.

Eclipse foundation really made me appreciate numbers

[hellwig]

Open Source?

Considering how difficult Oracle makes it to work with standard Java, how will a claimed "open source" Java EE actually work? Aren't the special Oracle extensions to Oracle's standard Java part of their complaint about people not licensing it (I'm pretty sure that's they're whole basis for their lawsuit against Google's Android)? Now they're going to open-source Java's bigger more expensive brother, and the world will just join hands and sing Kumbaya?

Or am I misunderstanding what "open source projects" means? Will Java EE still be pay to play? Sometimes I just don't understand how any of this crap works. I don't develop for Java if that's not clear.

[Anonymous Coward]

Worried

t.b.h. I am very very worried (enough to post).

This is why I use JEE:

http://adambien.blog/roller/abien/entry/hello_javaee_7_with_maven

I worry that the "Spring" people will "take" over and the simplicity of JEE (that has taken years to perfect) will be lost.

The point of having an EE server, to run on, is that you don't have to build you server from scratch in your own code base (aka Spring).

EE servers are incredibly powerful and millions of man hours has gone into perfecting them.

J7EE is massively productive, JSF is incredibly powerful when teamed up with a components (IceFaces, Primefaces). And its stable; unlike the Javascript frameworks where the components don't work well and the whole framework is completely thrown out every 6 months. Just because people cant understand how to use JSF does not mean its JSFs problem.

People are blown away with how productive JEE is (from personal experience).

As another poster pointed out; a lot of java is not about web front ends.

[Karlis 1]

Eclipse Foundation - where dead code goes to die again.

Good riddance.

[warrenmnocos]

New name, EE4J sucks

I hate the new name, not so catchy for new enterprise Java comers. And it's too "denominational" (eclipse enterprise). Seems like I'm hearing a new Java library for logging. They should've consulted the community before assigning a new name. The name plays a significant role in drawing more developers and organization in using the the platform. I suggest Java Cloud Edition (Java CE). It follows the naming pattern of Java SE, and the late Java EE. It stresses "Cloud", where I believe enterprise Java is heading. Microservices is the thing for today, for the future, and for enterprise Java.