It's somewhat related....in terms of Resin, we actually don't have such
a thing as a traditional EJB container - we have "aspects" such as
transactions delivered via meta-data (e.g. @TransactionAttribute), the
aspects are bound to an underlying implementation (e.g. transaction
manager) and can be used in any component model including managed beans
or EJB. The "EJB Lite" distinction is tenuous since you don't really
need to use the EJB component model per se.
To be honest, I'm kind of confused myself now. Circling back to my initial argument, the two options we provide in Java EE at this moment are:
- a non-transactional "simple" managed bean or,
- an EJB session bean (which is, by default, transactional, and more)
So if the developer wants a transactional bean without using an EJB container, they have to use some sort of framework (or portable CDI extension) to get it. To me, that is where Java EE falls apart. There needs to be some middle of the road that the developer can get a transactional bean out of the box OR we just need to say, if you want a transactional bean, you have to use EJB w/ at least EJB lite, period.
Why isn't the "simple" transactional bean something that Java EE can provide. Clearly a use case is being ignored.
-Dan
p.s. The "simple" transactional bean would be a bean w/ @TransactionAttribute and somehow @PersistenceContext would be supported on the bean.