The Java Platform Enterprise Edition 5 specification has
been approved by the Java Community Process (JCP), providing what
Java owner Sun Microsystems describes as a simplified model for
component-based software development.
Java EE 5 is a major update of Java 2.0 Enterprise Edition
(J2EE), the enterprise platform for building Java applications and
services.
Michael Azoff, senior research analyst at Butler Group, said
Java developers complained of insufficient automation of
programming tasks in previous versions of J2EE. “You relied too
much on the developer to govern unruly code generated by the
platform,” he said.
This had given rise to alternative, developer-friendly Java
platforms, such as the Spring framework and the JBoss middleware
platform Jems. Both take advantage of technology called Plain Old
Java Objects (Pojos) to simplify Enterprise Java Beans (EJB)
programming.
J2EE users have been at a disadvantage compared with .net users
and Java developers opting for the Spring framework, who have a
simple way to create web services.
“Sun has addressed the demands of the Java community and brought
Java EE up to date,” said Azoff.
The new version offers EJB 3.0, which Sun claims will simplify
the development of web services using Java via Pojos. It also
includes Java Persistence – a new application programming interface
jointly developed by Sun and Oracle, which allows users to map Java
objects to relational databases. Users can develop Ajax
(Asynchronous Javascript Technology and XML) applications using
Java Server Faces 1.2.
Supporters of Java EE 5 include BEA, JBoss, IBM, Oracle and
SAP.