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

- The purpose of this documentation is threefold: + There are many purposes for this documentation:

To allow others and myself to use this library.
To document the current state of development (some parts may be deprecated because of - other evolutions in technology).
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.

+ +

+ 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. +