Java EE 6 and the snowball effect
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Join For FreeJava EE application servers increase their feature sets (APIs and
administration features) whilst business applications get smaller and
smaller. This introduces a new issue: if you need a single feature of a
new application server version you'll get a complete package of features
that you didn't need in the first place (the snowball effect). Let me
give you an example: in WebSphere 7 IBM provides a high speed
integration adapter for IMS assets. We need that, but we don't need all
the rest that gives us a headache in terms of migration efforts. Now, if
the amount of APIs increase in Java EE with every version, I predict
that this problem starts to get more and more complicated. That's a
reason why I don't appreciate the fact that Java EE standardizes former
framework functionality like dependency injection (CDI). Business
applications may get smaller, but application server feature sets get
huge this way. Is that a good trend?
I typically try to keep application bundles small in
my business applications. Not in size necessarily but in terms of
packaged features. This way I don't create artificial dependencies. You
need to deploy a new web service version? Then I can only deploy that
specific web service module without creating a snowball effect of
additional required deployments. Small packages reduce the need of
branch development. Small packages reduce the risk of instability. Small
packages reduce the necessity to synchronize deployments of different
development teams. If you finnish your work or you need to deploy a new
version of your application then you should create as little dependency
as possible. In an ideal scenario you don't need to talk to any other
developer if you want to deploy the features your responsible for. I
think this should also apply to application server software. The trend
to shrink business application feature sets and increase those of
application servers should stop. Or: administration features of
application servers should be seperated and compatible to the different
Java EE standards. A more moduralized approach would be desireable.
From http://niklasschlimm.blogspot.com/2011/11/java-ee-6-and-snowball-effect.html
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