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Java EE 5 Simply Too Complex, Analyst Says


1990s approach to programming makes platform no longer viable

By Alex Handy
November 1, 2006 — 
When Sun Microsystems trotted out Java Enterprise Edition 5 at JavaOne this past summer, the company heralded it as the simplest Java EE yet. With the addition of Enterprise JavaBeans 3.0, annotations and more refined persistence support, Java EE 5 was supposed to speed development and testing. But at the time, Richard Monson-Haefel, senior analyst at the Burton Group and one of the contributors to the design of EJB 3.0, predicted that Java EE 5 was still too large and complex. Now, four months later, he’s more sure than ever that Java EE 5 stacks are headed for the junk heap.

Monson-Haefel was on the executive committee for J2EE 1.4 and he was a founder of the open-source application server project Geronimo. He said that the future of Java as a whole is not in question, but that the massive framework of Java EE 5 is still too much to handle.

“Java Standard Edition is rock-solid. It’s Java EE that’s no longer a viable platform,” said Monson-Haefel. He added that, while many developers use servlets, Java Database Connectivity and JavaServer Pages, these same developers are usually at the Java EE trough for these features alone. “The Java EE specification says you have to use all these [APIs]. In order to be certified, you have to create a project that uses all these pieces. To get all those things to play well together, you end up with a really complicated programming model. Java EE is based on a late-1990s approach to programming: It’s very API-centric.”

COMPLICATING MATTERS
Monson-Haefel said that, rather than simplifying things in Java EE 5, the JCP actually has complicated matters. While Sun touts simplicity as the most significant improvement to this version, Monson-Haefel said that these improvements actually increased the difficulty for developers.

“It seems simpler on the surface, but developers have to learn an entirely new API: the persistence API, which introduces a new programming model,” said Monson-Haefel. “It’s not a programming model that substantially simplifies the task. If they’d added a WYSIWYG drag-and-drop system for development, that would be a convincing simplicity argument. But looking at the tech itself, and speaking to people who are actually using EE, and using it myself, I came to the conclusions that this platform is not simpler—it’s just different.”

Since Sun handed over the design of the Java EE platform to the JCP, it’s not the only party responsible for this increased complexity. As a member of the JCP, Monson-Haefel said that he and all members of the JCP are to blame for EE 5’s current state. SD Times attempted to discuss these issues with Sun’s Java EE 5 team, but the company could not present the team for an interview before press time.

NO SIMPLE ANSWERS
Onno Kluyt, director of the JCP program at Sun, said that the complexity Monson-Haefel sees as a problem is not in the bailiwick of the JCP. Kluyt said that the JCP is a standards body, not an optimization body. Kluyt said that the best way to provide simplicity is in the IDE. “Many of the JSRs keep in mind how APIs can be constructed so that the various IDEs can hook into those APIs to provide wizards and other helpful tools,” said Kluyt. “Simplicity is something each JSR keeps in mind and focuses on. But from a regulatory perspective, it’s not clear how you would enforce [a push for simplicity]. Simplicity is in the eye of the beholder.”

That’s an argument Monson-Haefel said he has heard before. “The vendors have been singing that song since EJB and Java EE were first introduced in 1998 and 1999. In eight years of development, the tooling—with maybe one or two exceptions—really hasn’t developed to the point where the task becomes simpler,” said Monson-Haefel.

“There is an enormous amount of configuration that has to take place before you deploy an application. I think it’s obvious that this is not about tooling because this hasn’t been solved yet,” added Monson-Haefel.

So what should enterprises looking for an application stack do? Monson-Haefel said that there is no single solution. Since Java EE 5’s fundamental problem is that it attempts to be all things to all people, he said, a single solution isn’t likely to appear. What he did suggest is that only a handful of companies actually need all the functionality provided by a full Java EE stack.

For the rest of the business world, said Monson-Haefel, the software choice should be dictated by the problem being solved.

“You have to look at the offerings and find the thing that fits your solution. Stop following the technology that’s being handed out by the vendors and find a solution that will work for you,” said Monson-Haefel.


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