users@javaee-spec.java.net

[javaee-spec users] Re: Configuration

From: <pmuir_at_bleepbleep.org.uk>
Date: Mon, 6 Jun 2011 11:07:21 +0000 (GMT)

Reza,

I definitely agree with you and Antonio that Java EE needs a deployment
descriptor update!

The portable extension approach works very well for configuring CDI
beans, but it doesn't help when configuring other specs.

Seam XML works by altering the metadata about classes/annotations that
CDI sees. It uses the lifecycle events to perform that alteration.
Unfortunately, nobody but CDI will look at this altered metadata, so
e.g. if you add an annotation to a servlet using Seam Config, you won't
see that applied.

One way to address this would be to make all specs able to be
configured completely programmatically, thus allowing an app server to
have a pluggable configuration layer, ala Seam Config.

Pete

On 2 Jun 2011, at 20:25, Reza Rahman wrote:

I agree with Antonio that XML configuration in the platform needs some
love too :-).

However, I'm unsure on what priority this should receive or whether a
Portable Extension like Seam 3 Configuration is good enough for now...

Cheers,
Reza


On 6/2/2011 1:47 PM, Antonio Goncalves wrote:
I would like to share some thoughts with you.

I've used in the past Spring Config and latelly I've attended a
conference that talked about Seam Config. Clearly I can see the benefit
of having easy configuration on the entire platform. At the moment we
have ejb-jar.xml and environment entries to configure our EJBs. We can
also use the web.xml to pass some parameters to our servlets and bits
and pieces in the application.xml file.

Why not having a seperate spec that takes inspiration from Seam Config,
Spring Config and so on to be able to configure the entire platform (a
CDI bean as well as an EJB...). Configuration will also be used for
Paas purposes of course.

Configuration is an important topic and developers never know where to
put it : property files, XML, database, JNDI. Why not having a spec
that specifies how configuration should work (I really like the Seam
Config approach) and each spec could then use it to specify how to
configure a specific component, as well as batch processing or
Paas/Saas configuration...

Again, my 2 cents

-- 
Antonio Goncalves 
Software architect and Java Champion
Web site | Twitter | Blog | LinkedIn | Paris JUG
No virus found in this message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 10.0.1375 / Virus Database: 1511/3675 - Release Date: 06/02/11