[DevoxxBE2012] Real World Java EE
Adam Bien, a renowned Java consultant, author, and Java Champion with decades of experience in enterprise applications, delivered an impromptu yet insightful session on practical Java EE usage. Adam, known for books like “Real World Java EE Patterns,” shared real-world insights from his freelance projects, emphasizing simplicity and effectiveness over hype.
He started by recounting his journey since 1995, favoring Java EE for its robustness in production. Adam advocated thin WAR deployments, bundling everything into a single archive for easy management, contrasting with complex EAR structures.
Discussing boundaries, Adam promoted domain-driven design, where entities form the core, with services as facades. He cautioned against unnecessary abstractions, like excessive DAOs, favoring direct JPA usage.
Adam highlighted CDI’s power for dependency injection, reducing boilerplate. He demonstrated boundary-control-entity patterns, where boundaries handle transactions, controls manage logic, and entities persist data.
Deployment Strategies and Simplicity
Adam stressed deploying as WARs to containers like GlassFish, avoiding heavy setups. He shared experiences with microservices avant la lettre, using REST for inter-service communication.
He critiqued over-engineering, like misusing ESBs for simple integrations, preferring lightweight approaches.
Testing and Quality Assurance
Adam advocated comprehensive testing: unit with JUnit, integration with Arquillian, and UI with Selenium/Graphene. He demonstrated embedding containers for realistic tests.
He emphasized boundary testing, simulating real scenarios without mocks where possible.
Performance and Scalability
Discussing optimization, Adam noted Java EE’s built-in clustering, but advised measuring first. He shared cases where simple configurations sufficed, avoiding premature scaling.
Community and Best Practices
Adam encouraged open-source contributions, sharing his GitHub projects. He addressed common pitfalls, like session misuse, advocating stateless designs.
In Q&A, he discussed tools like Jenkins for CI and IDEs like IntelliJ.
Adam’s talk reinforced Java EE’s viability for real-world applications through pragmatic, lean practices.