DZone
Thanks for visiting DZone today,
Edit Profile
  • Manage Email Subscriptions
  • How to Post to DZone
  • Article Submission Guidelines
Sign Out View Profile
  • Post an Article
  • Manage My Drafts
Over 2 million developers have joined DZone.
Log In / Join
Refcards Trend Reports Events Over 2 million developers have joined DZone. Join Today! Thanks for visiting DZone today,
Edit Profile Manage Email Subscriptions Moderation Admin Console How to Post to DZone Article Submission Guidelines
View Profile
Sign Out
Refcards
Trend Reports
Events
Zones
Culture and Methodologies Agile Career Development Methodologies Team Management
Data Engineering AI/ML Big Data Data Databases IoT
Software Design and Architecture Cloud Architecture Containers Integration Microservices Performance Security
Coding Frameworks Java JavaScript Languages Tools
Testing, Deployment, and Maintenance Deployment DevOps and CI/CD Maintenance Monitoring and Observability Testing, Tools, and Frameworks
Partner Zones AWS Cloud
by AWS Developer Relations
Culture and Methodologies
Agile Career Development Methodologies Team Management
Data Engineering
AI/ML Big Data Data Databases IoT
Software Design and Architecture
Cloud Architecture Containers Integration Microservices Performance Security
Coding
Frameworks Java JavaScript Languages Tools
Testing, Deployment, and Maintenance
Deployment DevOps and CI/CD Maintenance Monitoring and Observability Testing, Tools, and Frameworks
Partner Zones
AWS Cloud
by AWS Developer Relations
Building Scalable Real-Time Apps with AstraDB and Vaadin
Register Now

Trending

  • Java String Templates Today
  • You’ve Got Mail… and It’s a SPAM!
  • Mainframe Development for the "No Mainframe" Generation
  • Application Architecture Design Principles

Trending

  • Java String Templates Today
  • You’ve Got Mail… and It’s a SPAM!
  • Mainframe Development for the "No Mainframe" Generation
  • Application Architecture Design Principles
  1. DZone
  2. Coding
  3. Java
  4. Why I'm Using Java EE (Instead of Spring)

Why I'm Using Java EE (Instead of Spring)

The case is made for using Java EE 7 and 8 over Spring. Whether it's backward compatibility, the minimal configuration, or other benefits, here's what he has to say.

Sebastian Daschner user avatar by
Sebastian Daschner
·
Oct. 26, 16 · Opinion
Like (85)
Save
Tweet
Share
50.46K Views

Join the DZone community and get the full member experience.

Join For Free

Just recently, after one of my sessions at JavaDay Kyiv, I was asked by an attendee what the reasons were for my use of Java EE. In the session, I mentioned that in the past, I was also a heavy user of Spring.

Actually, I always enjoyed programming in Spring, and I liked the declarative programming model with annotations and the fact that the technology evolves quite fast. I used Spring up to version 4 in real-world projects, and we always tried to use the latest approaches — like @RestControllers, or Java-based configuration back then.

Besides the fact that Spring offered a great developer experience, I didn’t like a few things about it:

  • There's quite a lot of configuration needed (XML, then Java-based config, Database setup/transaction managers), which has to be changed quite often.
  • Longer build times (as the implementation is shipped in the deployment artifact) — we mostly deployed a fat-war on a Servlet container.
  • Not always backward compatible (or fully compatible with other Spring components with different lifecycles, like Spring Security) when updating versions.

Besides Spring, I’ve been also using a lot of Java EE — depending on the project. What I especially liked about Java EE was the powerful dependency injection provided by CDI and the fact that the technology within the EE umbrella can be used with each other right away — like Bean Validation together with CDI. That and the fast build times with small war-files made me consider Java EE as the favorable choice more and more.

What's really sold me is the fact that Java EE 7 can be used with Java 8 without any other (technically-reasoned) dependency. With the convention-over-configuration and just-mix-and-match-what-you-like approaches, it offers a productive and, I think, really enjoyable developer experience.

So, as of today, my main reasons for favoring Java EE as an enterprise framework — it always depends on the project and the use-cases — are:

  • Use different specifications together with each other seamlessly.
  • Zero to minimal configuration, convention-over-configuration approaches.
  • CDI’s powerful and flexible programming model.
  • Separation of business code from framework implementation (also see another blog post).
  • Very short build, transfer, and deployment times are possible.
  • Backward compatible (that’s especially interesting for long-lived enterprise projects) and no surprises when updating a version.

Conclusion

As always, the choice of the technology depends on what you’re trying to achieve and how familiar you and your colleagues are with that technologies. The question is not whether A is better or worse than B but rather what the strengths and weaknesses are and when to apply them.

No matter if you’re using Spring or Java EE, I would, in general, advise you to go with one but not mix them together. In my opinion, it doesn’t make a lot sense to either deploy Spring on an EE application server or to use Java EE specific technology in a Spring stack, which is already covered by another Spring-specific component, respectively.

Java EE Spring Framework Java (programming language)

Published at DZone with permission of Sebastian Daschner. See the original article here.

Opinions expressed by DZone contributors are their own.

Trending

  • Java String Templates Today
  • You’ve Got Mail… and It’s a SPAM!
  • Mainframe Development for the "No Mainframe" Generation
  • Application Architecture Design Principles

Comments

Partner Resources

X

ABOUT US

  • About DZone
  • Send feedback
  • Careers
  • Sitemap

ADVERTISE

  • Advertise with DZone

CONTRIBUTE ON DZONE

  • Article Submission Guidelines
  • Become a Contributor
  • Visit the Writers' Zone

LEGAL

  • Terms of Service
  • Privacy Policy

CONTACT US

  • 600 Park Offices Drive
  • Suite 300
  • Durham, NC 27709
  • support@dzone.com

Let's be friends: