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A Java EE Startup: Filtering information with zeef.com

adam-bien.com

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Re: A Java EE Startup: Filtering information with zeef.com

#31

Post by speakeron »

dschiptsov wrote: post #25
mkawia wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong if that platform is improving . There are so many really good java libraries to play with . I for instance wanted to build a webapp with the StanfordNLP .

Oh, come on, the creator of this site has a whole essay about languages (or platforms) which has been made to solve actual problems faced by its creators or to solve other people's problems (to be sold to greater fools). There is no better example of second approach than J2EE. To Google J2EE sucks is not that difficult. My favourite quote from Bell Labs folks - "whole encyclopedia could be written about what is wrong…

> it is the same crappy mess of piles of unnecessary layes of ugly, redundant abstractions.

This is straw-man stuff based on an old view of who uses Java and when.

I've programmed in a lot of languages - C++, Java, Objective-C (with a NeXT, of course) and the trendier functional, meta-programming languages.

One of the cliches (and truisms) of C++ is that you only use a subset. This is what people are doing with Java these days. You can bring up high-performance web services using only a thin layer of J2EE and throw away all that cruft you mention. In my company we do it all with a third-party web layer and just SE (is it just J2EE you're agin - are you fine with SE?).

What Java brings to the table is a well-sorted high performance JVM, copious free and high-quality third-party libraries and a clear and easy to use syntax. Yea, it's quite verbose, but, as you know, you spend more time reading code than writing it...

Re: A Java EE Startup: Filtering information with zeef.com

#32

Post by [deleted] »

mikehaggard wrote: post #8
eranation wrote: post #4

Modern Java EE has taken a lot of influence from other web frameworks. It is now much more convention over configuration than it used to be. I think it just lacks a new MVC module as an alternative to JSF. If only jersey 2.0's mvc templates were added to the core, I would have considered it instead of other alternatives (e.g. Adding routing to a view from JAX-RS, right now it's not trivial and meant mostly for "servi…

> I think it just lacks a new MVC module as an alternative to JSF. In Java EE 8 such a new MVC framework is indeed coming. From the same startup the article uses as an example: https://mvc.zeef.com/manfred.riem That page is from the MVC 1.0 spec lead (Manfred Riem). It's going to be strongly based on JAX-RS and mimicking how Spring MVC and Jersey MVC now works.

[deleted]

Re: A Java EE Startup: Filtering information with zeef.com

#33

Post by johnyzee »

For rich web applications, GWT is a great option. It is a blessing to write the frontend with the same language and toolchain as the backend, re-using domain classes and constants across the projects.

Our current project uses Spring MVC for the backend, exposing REST services, and GWT for the frontend, with Resty for marshalling data structures back and forth. It works really well.

Re: A Java EE Startup: Filtering information with zeef.com

#34

Post by smoyer »

manishsharan wrote: post #29

JSF ? Oh those gullible youngsters ! JSF is the slowest way to do web development for rich client UI: starting stopping J2EE servers is time consuming. HTML templating is difficult; you can't see what you screen looks like until you serve the page from your J2EE server .Also JSF is an unnecessary abstraction over HTML : it is much easier to maintain state on client itself using any of Javascript libraries like React…

JSF isn't the greatest, but it's improved a lot starting with version 2.0. I can indeed see a preview of what my page will look like (with templates applied) right in my IDE. The fact that you called it J2EE makes me think you're talking about the "old" Enterprise Java. I abandoned it for a while back then too - it was no fun to use!

Re: A Java EE Startup: Filtering information with zeef.com

#35

Post by [deleted] »

smoyer wrote: post #34
manishsharan wrote: post #29

JSF ? Oh those gullible youngsters ! JSF is the slowest way to do web development for rich client UI: starting stopping J2EE servers is time consuming. HTML templating is difficult; you can't see what you screen looks like until you serve the page from your J2EE server .Also JSF is an unnecessary abstraction over HTML : it is much easier to maintain state on client itself using any of Javascript libraries like React…

JSF isn't the greatest, but it's improved a lot starting with version 2.0. I can indeed see a preview of what my page will look like (with templates applied) right in my IDE. The fact that you called it J2EE makes me think you're talking about the "old" Enterprise Java. I abandoned it for a while back then too - it was no fun to use!

[deleted]

Re: A Java EE Startup: Filtering information with zeef.com

#36

Post by smoyer »

johnyzee wrote: post #33

For rich web applications, GWT is a great option. It is a blessing to write the frontend with the same language and toolchain as the backend, re-using domain classes and constants across the projects. Our current project uses Spring MVC for the backend, exposing REST services, and GWT for the frontend, with Resty for marshalling data structures back and forth. It works really well.

And there's Errai to extend server side CDI (injection, events and context) to the GWT client side application. Substitute REST (using JAX-RS) for the server-side calls and you can provide the same API for external programs and your GWT client.

Re: A Java EE Startup: Filtering information with zeef.com

#37

Post by john-waterwood »

cies wrote: post #27
mikehaggard wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with what you say. Certainly would have had a bit more value if the article had elaborated on whether they used anything else. I feel the interviewer should have asked about that. Even a "no, we didn't" would have been valuable. Now we know nothing. That said, it DOES mean that they have been happy with Java EE and have been so happy that they choose it again for their latest startup. Contrast this with a typ…

> That said, it DOES mean that they have been happy with Java EE Sure. I'm also happy for them, and I acknowledge JEE's massive installed-base and performance. Just the "startup secret weapon" claim/title I thought was unfounded.

I hear you. I personally stand by the title choice because IMHO there are two facets to Java EE. I'm not saying that it's a fact (I simply don't have the data to back it up), but those 2 facets I see are:

* huge installed enterprise base

* modernisation of the platform aiming it a both small and big users

I've been active in Java/Java EE for some time, and I know that these facets can be at odds with each other.

For instance Java EE people wanting to support enterprises exclusively still think in needs of enterprises, which means there's always a dedicated ops team, an installed server that nobody but ops can touch and developers that communicate with ops via tickets.

This warrants having data sources and security modules configured outside the application and maintained by ops.

For small users this is silly overhead. When you're the only one developing an app the security module can be right inside the app.

Some Java EE people have introduced mechanisms to do so, but the enterprise people who are still there hate it, saying a server should always be maintained by an ops team. The very idea that a small shop doesn't have an ops team just doesn't occur to them.

Long story, but the simplifications that are making Java EE incresingly suitable for small shops and startups, while maintaining access to the power of the full platform to me doesn't seem well known yet.

Re: A Java EE Startup: Filtering information with zeef.com

#38

Post by the_rosentotter »

john-waterwood wrote: post #16
threeseed wrote: post #2

There is no doubt this combination would be extremely high performant e.g. Wildfly was always in the top handful on Techempower benchmarks. But using JSF and EJB is a pretty extraordinary combination to be using these days. You would honestly be laughed out of every Java development team for even considering it. Would definitely like to see why something like Dropwizard, Vert.x or even Play 1 wasn't considered.

JSF and EJB are the reason why Java EE is lately considered the "secret weapon". The fact is that both invoke memories of old times where they were very heavyweight and problematic technologies. EJB was a total disaster, where you needed to implement 3 interfaces and inherit from a framework provided base class, compile your code with a special "enhancing" tool and run yet another tool to generate something called st…

> In modern Java EE there's no reason whatsoever to avoid EJB.

I don't see much reason to use it, either. The only exception is for distributed transactions, where session beans serve as nice abstractions as entry points and managers for the transactions.

Re: A Java EE Startup: Filtering information with zeef.com

#39

Post by simonw »

john-waterwood wrote: post #16
threeseed wrote: post #2

There is no doubt this combination would be extremely high performant e.g. Wildfly was always in the top handful on Techempower benchmarks. But using JSF and EJB is a pretty extraordinary combination to be using these days. You would honestly be laughed out of every Java development team for even considering it. Would definitely like to see why something like Dropwizard, Vert.x or even Play 1 wasn't considered.

JSF and EJB are the reason why Java EE is lately considered the "secret weapon". The fact is that both invoke memories of old times where they were very heavyweight and problematic technologies. EJB was a total disaster, where you needed to implement 3 interfaces and inherit from a framework provided base class, compile your code with a special "enhancing" tool and run yet another tool to generate something called st…

I don't understand how "sucking less" makes JSF a secret weapon. What advantages does it provide over other, simpler ways of managing templates and views?

Re: A Java EE Startup: Filtering information with zeef.com

#40

Post by mark_l_watson »

That was a good interview. A few years ago, I took almost a year out to help a friend (from since we were little kids) and his company and they were a J2EE shop for the server side. One of the first things I did was to buy one of Adam Bien's J2EE books because I had not touched J2EE for years. My friend is a true Java Ninja and his architecture and code were elegant. That said, for my own stuff I like the simplicity of Clojure and Compojure :-)

I looked at zeef.com and it is an interesting idea, but I tried searching for a few broad topics that I am an expert in and found the results so-so. zeef.com needs a larger number of human experts contributing.

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