overview

- The utilities library consists of software to support development of - Java and in particular Java EE applications. - See the links on the left side for information about various - components of the utilities library. -

The utilities library consists of software to support development of Java and in + particular Java EE applications. I started this in 2005 when I realized that it would be + very nice to have a support library readily available instead of having to cut and paste + from old code.

There are many purposes for this documentation:

To allow others to use this library.
To allow myself to use the library(!). This is because I have written a lot of stuff in + the past and need to make sure I have good enough documentation describing what I have + made and how to use it.
To document the current state of development. In particular, some parts may be + deprecated because of other developments).
To allow extension of the library.

See the links on the left side for information about various components of the utilities + library.

+ +

Some parts in the utilities library may seem familiar to users of other popular frameworks + such as Spring and Guice. This is not always a coincidence. + It is my view that there many good IOC + frameworks but that it is not a good idea to tie into any one of them + specifically. Also, the support that one actually needs to develop applications and in + particular enterprise applications efficiently only requires a few basic support utilities + and typically not a big framework. Therefore, you will find a couple of small + utilities that may be familiar in the functionality they offer to what is found + in other frameworks.

Apart from this, there are many other interesting developments going on:

Java EE 6 dependency injection: Java EE 6 provides a powerful dependency + injection framework called Contexts and + Dependency Injection (CDI), that contains a lot of experience from proven frameworks + such as Spring and Guice. In particular, I think CDI can be viewed as a standardization of + Guice (although some people might disagree). This, in effect, should make anyone think + twice before depending heavily on a 3rd party IOC framework instead of using CDI.
Lightweight component technologies: Integration of lightweight component + technologies such as OSGI and Java EE is under way which + will also shift the balance. In effect, the enterprise spec for OSGI was released March + 23rd 2010 and Glassfish V3 is already partly using it.

In particular, I believe that Java EE 6 with new powerful concepts such as singleton + beans, lifecycle management, Contexts and Dependency Injection, used in combination with Enterprise OSGI will + provide the most powerful way to develop applications in the future. In this. I am making + only an exception for web frameworks to which I think JSF is not a good solution. I would + use Wicket anyday if it were up to me.