[weld-dev] (embedded JBoss plugin?) Re: persistence and transactions outside Java EE

[Steven Boscarine]

Dan Allen wrote:
> You are correct that for various reasons, many developers are fixated 
> on Tomcat and Jetty. However, I do believe that if there are 
> embeddable Java EE alternatives, such as Embedded JBoss AS, then the 
> grip on servlet containers will loosen.
I agree with Dan very strongly.  The sooner there's a JEE6 container 
that can be launched from maven, like Jetty or Tomcat can now, the 
"stickier" JEE6 will become and adoption rates will increase. 

The more steps in an evaluation that cannot be scripted the greater 
chance that the user will either make a mistake or find something else 
to do, like get back to work.  :)

IMO, a key group of developers you'd want to target are very busy 
people.  For many of them, when they are evaluating new software, it is 
often at the expense of tasks that their management thinks is of higher 
priority.  When they are checking out Weld or JSF2, they're often not 
doing what their manager wants them to do. 

If we make evaluating a technology easy and pleasant, I think they'll be 
more likely to want to go further and adopt the technology, tell their 
friends, train coworkers, contribute, schedule training, buy books, buy 
support contracts, hire consultants, etc.  In my experience, busy 
developers are often employed by successful companies who have 
reasonable budgets.  If the getting started procedure is frustrating, I 
think they're more likely to stop playing with new technology and just 
continue using their current technology (like struts or even pure JSP + 
Servlets), get back to work, etc. 

Currently, GlassFish v3 can be launched from Maven, but it was a side 
project by Koshuke Kawaguchi 
http://weblogs.java.net/blog/2008/04/28/glassfish-v3-just-got-embeddable  
It is not as well documented as Jetty and doesn't auto-deploy modified 
classes.  It even shares the same plugin name (but different package) as 
the official Glassfish plugin which controls a locally installed plugin, 
making the plugin very confusing. 

I heard a rumor JBoss is working on an embeddable version of JBossAS 
which will have a maven plugin which will download and run a container 
like the Tomcat plugin.  The instant it resembles a working product, 
I'll happily include it in the archetypes as I think it'll go a long way 
towards increasing JEE6 adoption.  It'll make writing applications much 
easier for the user and make documenting how to get started a breeze for 
contributers like me. 

Thanks,
Steven

PS-If anyone hasn't yet used the Tomcat/Jetty/Glassfish plugins, I have 
an old blog post explaining how to use them here:  
http://info.rmatics.org/2009/04/02/increasing-your-productivity-by-using-an-embedded-container-in-maven/