J2EE specification doesn't go far enough -- need "helpers" in order to be productive and effective in order to produce a J2EE application. Certain "artifacts" are common, such as:

• Generate entity beans from DB
• Using resources (JMS, JDBC, etc)
• Using patterns (service locator, etc) and Blueprints
• Provisioning server resources
• Verifying, profiling.

Offload some of these tasks to tools, others to specifications/core langauge/etc. How does this talk contrast with the Spring talk (which says that all of this crap should be handled by frameworks)?

J2EE 1.4 free tools:

• Eclipse - Web Tool Platform (WTP) / J2EE standard tools (JST)
• NetBeans - 4.1 just shipped (May), full support for all J2EE whiz-bangs

NetBeans notes:

• NetBeans can do one-click compile-assemble-startserver-deploy-execute (Run)
• Refactoring at J2EE level (class name change propagates to descriptors)
• Ant native (project in NetBeans makes build.xml). Good for nightly builds!
• Blueprints compliant -- what is this? Need to look it up. Looks like best practices for J2EE application layout.
• Debugging: hides crap from application server in stack trace. Monitor HTTP requests. J2EE verifier tool.
• Can get JBoss plugin for NetBeans.
• Wizards for making EJB calls, doing JDBC access, or sending a JMS message

Java EE 5

• "The focus of Java EE 5 is ease of development"
• EJBs as regular Java objects (standard interface for inheritance)
• Annotations vs. deployment descriptors (dependency injections)
• Better default behavior and configuration
• Simplified container manager persistence
• Developer works less, container works more (app server)

Annotations

• comments that guide code?
• alternative to XDoclet
• Syntax is to use '@' symbol

EJBs are POJOs

• only a business interface to work with
• XML descriptors replaced by annotations

It looks like if I just learn how J2EE 5 works, I can skip learning the older version, which is far harder/more complicated. EJB 3.0 requires dramatically less XML code to be written in order to work, and less Java code as well. Looks like this stuff isn't fully baked yet, however. :( See below:

Java EE 5 status

• specs still under expert discussion
• delivery date is targeted for 1Q 2006
• Many areas ready: API simplification, Metadata via annotation, dependency injection, persistence
• NetBeans 5.0 will be ready at same time

GlassFish Java EE 5 application server is some sort of new app server being written by Sun. Preview builds are available now? GlassFish purportedly works well with NetBeans. Plus, it looks like it is open source (which you know that I like).

Tools mandatory for J2EE 1.4 development. Features of Java EE 5 make development easier, and will be further assisted by smart tools. I knew that there was a new version of NetBeans out, which I was intending to check out at JavaOne. Also, it looks like there is a new NetBeans book out -- "NetBeans IDE Field Guide" which is good, because I don't like the documentation for NetBeans...