Java the bloat
By Robert Mullins
June 15, 2008 —
(Page 1 of 6)
Don’t expect people to bring lawn chairs to camp outside Sun Microsystems’ headquarters, waiting to pick up their copy of Java EE 6 when it’s released this year. After all, the platform for server applications isn’t the hottest new cell phone or game console. While Sun is touting the modularity and simplicity of the next generation of the Enterprise Edition, many are skeptical about its promise given the underwhelming response to its predecessor, Java EE 5.
Although software development experts involved in the Java Community Process (JCP) are working to finalize the specifications for Java EE 6, due by year’s end, the market may already be passing Sun by. To minimize the notorious “Java bloat”—the result of adding APIs and other specifications that fatten the platform without discarding old ones—Sun is preaching the virtues of modularity. Developers need only use the modules, or in Sun’s parlance, “profiles,” prescribed to build the particular application they have in mind.
To be sure, Sun can point to improvements in Java EE 6 over EE 5, and in EE 5 over its predecessor. But other software companies, commercial and open-source, are formulating solutions that can be used well before Sun can get EE 6 out the door.
“Modular design ... is something [application vendors] are basically taking into their own hands,” said Jeff Genender, a representative in the JCP of the Apache Software Foundation.
Apache, a nonprofit group supporting multiple open-source software projects, developed the Geronimo application server, whose latest update was delivered April 28. Geronimo features GBeans, a plug-in-based architecture, which lets users remove unneeded specs from Java EE 5, building lightweight configurations of the server.
A developer can start with what is basically a Geronimo kernel and add components as plug-ins to create a specific software stack, or start with the full Java EE 5 stack and remove components, Genender explained.
In a different approach to fighting Java bloat, Intelliun is using model-driven development, which adds an abstraction layer between the Java EE platform and the application layer. That way, the application can be developed without the complications of the platform layer, said Iyad Jabri, president and CEO of Intelliun.
Related Search Term(s): Apache, Java, Sun
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