
Java EE - mcp_
https://github.com/javaee/
======
garblegarble
What really frustrates me about how (I assume Oracle) handled this transition
away from java.net is that all the issue links just lead to the same "java.net
is closed" page, they didn't bother to redirect them to the github issues
pages (the issue IDs are the same from what I've seen).

I run into this issue often enough that I've been tempted to write a
userscript to translate the java.net links automatically... doesn't do
anything about all the broken documentation links though :(

~~~
beerbajay
Yep. The closure of java.net broke jvisualvm for me; none of the in-
application plugin links work. Instead you have to go find the new jvisualvm
page and download it separately.

------
tim333
As someone confused what this was about, it seems:

>Oracle said this week it plans to transfer management of the Java EE project
to an open-source foundation, such as Apache or Eclipse. (Aug 19)
[https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/technology/oracle-
want...](https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/technology/oracle-wants-to-
give-java-ee-to-the-open-source-community/)

~~~
kbenson
So Oracle fired off almost all the rest of the Solaris engineers, they are
moving Java out of house, what's left from the original Sun purchase? SPARC? I
see they still sell SPARC servers, but without confirmation from someone that
they've somehow kept competitive with Intel (which they were having problems
doing over a decade ago), I'm wondering if this is just a cash grab from
people that don't know what they're getting, or are somehow forced to run
software precompiled for SPARC (although gouging customers like that would fit
my preconception of Oracle, accurate or not)..

~~~
MikeTheGreat
Sun owned MySQL at the time; Oracle bought them for that.

Acquiring all the rest of the Sun stuff (SPARC, Solaris, Java, StarOffice,
VirtualBox, etc) was a side-effect of the MySQL acquisition.

~~~
kbenson
That is incredibly depressing to think about on many levels.

------
nilved
Needs context

~~~
netule
I agree; vague title. What's the significance of this submission?

------
myth_drannon
Looking at the people who belong to this organization, I get the feeling that
the majority of the JavaEE development was outsourced to India.

~~~
geodel
Isn't the whole J2EE business evolved for outsourcing IT work?

~~~
devonkim
J2EE was designed for an era when big, monolithic entities were creating most
of the production-grade software out there, SMP hardware was extremely
expensive and capital-intensive, and open source software was largely
considered a joke by those with the buying decisions. It made sense to try to
target large entities that have developed decades of abstractions supposedly
meant to reflect how complex (perhaps complected?) their business layer logic
is and that their software architecture should be tightly coupled to it as
such.

J2EE became a target for offshore software projects primarily because of its
userbase being organizations that are fundamentally not software companies and
that are constantly trying to cut costs while being unable to migrate off
these systems quickly simply due to their sheer organizational inertia. These
companies culturally haven't scaled based upon much more than bodies (a
typical enterprise M&A is fundamentally more bodies and access to specific
customer bodies rather than a strategic technology play given how slow M&A
works in practice), and these are oftentimes the companies you see in
newspapers that are experiencing business difficulties - what skilled,
talented developers want to stake their careers working on software used only
by a community that is in a multi-decade crisis?

Even _if_ you spend a lot though, outcomes are not necessarily great either.
US DoD is a great example of tons of J2EE on their backends with unremarkable
outcomes despite having spent perhaps more dollars on software engineering
effort than probably Google has in the past 30 years cumulatively (where the
money goes is another topic).

It's tough problems as a large company that thought they were getting ahead of
the technology curve back in the 90s and are now the dinosaurs and fossils.

~~~
watwut
" what skilled, talented developers want to stake their careers working on
software used only by a community that is in a multi-decade crisis?"

What multi-decade crisis are you talking about? Not everyone is hipster afraid
to learn abstractions or unable to comprehend them. There is learning curve to
J2EE and especially early versions were hard to learn, but willingness or
ability to learn is not exactly mark of no-talented developer. Low skilled
untalented developers go for easy to learn technologies.

Integration projects are difficult for many reasons, technology choice is not
one of them.

~~~
watwut
I guess someone does not liked to hear that. I still find the "I was
unable/unwilling to learn technology x, it is too complex for me, therefore I
am superior" logic completely illogical.

------
sgt
My unit (previously Java EE focused) has since moved onto vert.x for
enterprise Java development. It's worth checking out.

~~~
slackingoff2017
+1 for vert.x it's based on the venerable Netty project and has extremely high
performance, about as close to C as you can get besides maybe Golang

Also DropWizard is pretty quick and offers a good combo of features.

Spring is the most feature complete, it's a shame it's so slow in comparison

------
geodel
By this Oracle now admits in times of Cloud, docker containers etc Java EE is
relic of past and not of much relevance. Surprisingly though, Spring with its
habit of adding a thick layer of crap over any technology is doing okay and
lot of people seem to like it.

~~~
insomniacity
Tell me more about Spring - I know people who use it but they seem to like it?

------
adamstockdill
Java EE 8 Hands On Lab.

------
nxc18
How is this just happening now? Java is super popular in the open source and
academic communities, but C# has been ahead of them since its start with an
open specification, open implementations, and for the past few years, a full-
throttle open source effort.

What's going on?

~~~
g051051
You're mistaking Microsoft's purely reactive strategy to something like real
planning and commitment to open source. MSFT has been pushing into that area
(sort of) recently because they kept getting their lunch stolen by all of the
open source technologies out there.

Do you think it was anything but the most incredible terror and desperation
that drove them to add a Linux subsystem to Windows? To open source their
"crown jewel" of .NET? To support Linux on Azure? To make Visual Studio almost
entirely free? To adopt Electron as the base for VS Code? To ditch TFS for
GitHub?

Edit: Corrected to be more precise Chromium vs. Electron.

~~~
stupidcar
It's funny how software developers have no problem whatsoever dealing with
complexity, except when it comes to corporate behaviour, when they are unable
to conceive of a company as anything other than a single, gestalt entity, with
a single opinion and purpose, whose actions are driven by the most basic
emotions and can be classified as good or evil with absolutely no grey-area.

In the real world, companies are made up of lots of individuals, all with
strong, differing opinions. Some people at Microsoft undoubtedly hate open
source. Some of them undoubtedly love it. Many of them are probably, like most
developers, somewhere in-between. They have no ideological investment, they
just make use of it when it's useful.

Having actually worked in the Microsoft ecosystem in past, I know that there
have been people there for _years_ who like open source, and who have pushed
to make Microsoft a more open company. There's no doubt that competitive
concerns have driven some of Microsoft's embrace of particular open source
technologies, but to characterise their entire approach to open source as
being: 1) entirely recent, and 2) completely fearful and reactive, has no
basis in recorded fact, and does an appalling disservice to the many people
who have spent many years (successfully) trying to change Microsoft's internal
culture and make it more friendly to open source.

~~~
g051051
> completely fearful and reactive, has no basis in recorded fact, and does an
> appalling disservice to the many people who have spent many years
> (successfully) trying to change Microsoft's internal culture and make it
> more friendly to open source.

If you're not already familiar with the "Halloween Documents"
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween_documents](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween_documents))
then you should take a look. They were pretty much the definition of "fearful
and reactive".

Microsoft has historically had an ideological investment in killing everything
that wasn't Windows.

Microsoft has been roused in this fashion 3 times before that I can think of.

1\. The internet. If you don't remember, MSFT completely misjudged the
importance of the internet. A heroic effort by Bill Gates turned the company
around and got them on track to seize control of the web (until Google drove
them back).

2\. Java. It was so successful that MSFT had to create a nearly identical tech
stack that they controlled, after Sun beat them in court.

3\. Linux. Open source, well supported, loved by tech people, runs on almost
every conceivable hardware platform. It's been a herculean effort just to
fight for market share. If it weren't for lock-in, MSFT would have gone the
way of Solaris and HP-UX.

Now open source is the only way to try to get back that developer mind share
that they've been losing for so long. This is a good thing in the long run,
but to couch it as anything but "fearful and reactive" is to discount a lot of
history.

------
googletazer
Java EE is trash compared to Spring/Play Framework.

