Vaadin, CDI and Java EE

While some people miss this point, one of the key goals of introducing CDI into Java EE was to easily enable integrating solutions outside the standard into the platform. I was recently reminded of this myself when I saw the announcement that Vaadin now officially supports CDI and Java EE.

Vaadin has long been a very compelling GWT based Java web framework. Although it lags behind the likes of JSF and Spring MVC in terms of adoption, it is extremely polished, it is very much aligned with the Java EE design philosophy and it has a very strong following that hasn't dissipated even with the rise of HTML 5 and JavaScript frameworks. Some folks have been using Vaadin with Java EE for a while using CDI as glue. I am glad both CDI and Java EE (including Java EE 7) is now officially supported by the Vaadin team itself. Like everything else Vaadin, the Java EE/CDI integration is extremely polished with a very nice tutorial explaining the features (see the link above). Another very good resource to get started with Java EE 7, CDI and Vaadin is the YouTube video below featuring Geertjan Wielenga of the NetBeans team and Matti Tahvonen of Vaadin. They use GlassFish and NetBeans for the demo.

Another great GWT based Java web framework worth checking out that works with CDI and Java EE is Errai.