overview

The general support library contains various smaller utilities that - can be useful for any java project. 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.

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- 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 Spring is just another IOC framework and - that there can be many IOC frameworks. 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. -

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, and 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's up to me. -

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