Rapid application development techniques, favoring rapid prototyping over intensive planning, have become popular in the last few years. Although the "old-school" Java Web frameworks (such as Struts and JSF) are well suited for enterprise projects, their development cycle is often too slow and complicated for prototyping. Due to their nature, dynamic languages such as Ruby, Python, and Groovy are natural for fast prototyping and scaffolding. But is there a way to benefit the Java ecosystem without compromising simplicity and productivity? This presentation tries to answer this question by comparing, head-to-head, three leading Java RAD tools—SeamForge, Play, and Roo—by writing a full-blown Web application in each of them, comparing the pros and cons along the way.

1. Pure Java RAD and
Scaffolding Tools Race
@Drorbr
@jbaruch
#javarad

2. Your Speakers
Dror Bereznitsky Baruch Sadogursky
@drorbr @jbaruch
Development Division Manager Innovation Expert
Tangram-Soft BMC Software

3. Agenda
Bla-bla-bla (AKA Overview)
1 Framework[] frameworks = new Framework[]{
2 seamForge, springRoo, playFramework};
3 for (Framework fw : frameworks) {
4 fw.showOverview();
5 fw.hightlightFeatures();
6 fw.runDemo();
7 fw.showProsAndCons();
8 }
Yadda-yadda-yadda (Aka Summary)

5. Rapid Application Development

6. Rapid Application Development

7. Why Slow?
Integration == pain!
Java Web Frwks suck!
Java EE application
– Map model to relational (JPA)
– Write Session EJBs for DAOs and Services
– Write JSF UI (E.g.JSP)
– Write bunch of xmls (persistence, web,
jsf, server specific)
– Deploy to JEE server

8. Scaffolding

9. Modules

10. Modules
1 @Async
2 public static void Talk.indexTalks(Collection<Talk> talks) {
3 List<SolrInputDocument> documents = new ArrayList<SolrInputDocument>();
4 for (Talk talk : talks) {
5 SolrInputDocument sid = new SolrInputDocument();
6 sid.addField("id", "talk_" + talk.getId());
7 sid.addField("talk.id_l", talk.getId());
8 sid.addField("talk.code_l", talk.getCode());
9 sid.addField("talk.title_s", talk.getTitle());
10 sid.addField("talk.track_t", talk.getTrack());
11 sid.addField("talk.category_t", talk.getCategory());
12 sid.addField("talk.speaker_t", talk.getSpeaker());
13 // Add summary field to allow searching documents
14 sid.addField("talk_solrsummary_t", new StringBuilder().
15 append(talk.getId()).append(" ").append(talk.getCode()).
16 append(" ").append(talk.getTitle()).append(" ").
17 append(talk.getTrack()).append(" ").
18 append(talk.getCategory()).append(" ").
19 append(talk.getSpeaker()));
20 documents.add(sid);
21 }
22 try {
23 SolrServer solrServer = solrServer();
24 solrServer.add(documents);
25 solrServer.commit();
26 } catch (Exception e) {
27 e.printStackTrace();
28 }
29 }

11. Writing your own module

12. Convention…

13. Over…

14. Configuration

16. On the Left lane:
JBOSS SEAM FORGE

17. Obvious and trivial jboss SEAM
FORGE Facts
Developed by JBOSS (surprise!)
Heavily based on JBOSS SEAM (surprise!)
Heavily based on Maven
Uses standard java ee 6 features
Evolved from seam-gen project in August 2010
latest version 1.0.0-beta1

18. Interesting stuff

19. Interesting stuff

20. Plugins (aka Modules)
Infrastructure
Javabean validation
Jboss as
Glassfish AS
Apache Maven

21. Developing Plugin
Use standard java ee cdi TO
access container services

22. Demo!

23. Pros and Cons

24. On the Middle lane:
SPRING ROO

25. Obvious and trivial Spring ROO Facts
Developed by springsource (surprise!)
Heavily based on the Spring framework (surprise!)
revealed @ SpringOne Europe on 27 April 2009
latest version 1.1.5

26. Inter-type declarations
1 @RooJavaBean
2 @RooToString
3 @RooEntity
4 public class Speaker {
5
6 @NotNull
7 private String firstName;
8
9 @NotNull
10 private String lastName;
11
12 private String email;
13
14 @ManyToMany(cascade = CascadeType.ALL)
15 private Set<Talk> talks = new HashSet();
16 }
1 privileged aspect Speaker_Roo_JavaBean {
2
3 public String Speaker.getFirstName() {
4 return this.firstName;
5 }
6
7 public void Speaker.setFirstName(String firstName) {
8 this.firstName = firstName;
9 }
10 …
11 }

27. Inter-type declarations
1 @RooJavaBean
2 @RooToString
3 @RooEntity
4 public class Speaker {
1 privileged aspect Speaker_Roo_Entity {
5 2
6 @NotNull 3 declare @type: Speaker: @Entity;
7 private String firstName; 4
8 5 @PersistenceContext
9 @NotNull 6 transient EntityManager Speaker.entityManager;
10 private String lastName; 7
11 8 @Id
12 private String email; 9 @GeneratedValue(strategy = GenerationType.AUTO)
13 10 @Column(name = "id")
14 @ManyToMany(cascade = CascadeType.ALL) 11 private Long Speaker.id;
15 private Set<Talk> talks = new HashSet(); 12
16 } 13 @Version
14 @Column(name = "version")
15 private Integer Speaker.version;
16
17 @Transactional
18 public void Speaker.persist() {
19 this.entityManager.persist(this);
20 }
21
22 public static long Speaker.countSpeakers() {
23 return entityManager().createQuery(
24 "SELECT COUNT(o) FROM Speaker o",
25 Long.class).getSingleResult();
26 }
27 …
28 }

28. add-ons (AKA Modules)
Infrastructure
Javabean validation SOLR
Cloud Foundry and GAE JUNIT and selenium
Embedded Jetty OSGi
Apache MAVEN

29. Developing add-on

30. Demo!

31. Pros and Cons

32. On the Right lane:
PLAY! FRAMEWORK

33. Obvious and trivial Play! Facts
Developed by guillaume bort, supported by zenexity
First signs of life from 12 may 2007
latest version 1.2.3

34. Not your grandpa’s RAD Tool
So, what gives?

35. The other “rapid”

36. More unusual stuff
Not using servlet API
Build and deployment handled by Python scripts
Static controllers
“Share nothing” architecture
JSP-LIKE templating engine (based on Groovy)
Admin area otf generation
Graphical Test runner

37. Modules
Infrastructure
Scala ElasticSearch and Lucene
Eclipse Compiler JUNIT and selenium
GAE OAuth
JBoss Netty
*Yap, we lied

38. Developing module

39. Developing module

40. Demo!

41. Pros and Cons

43. Feature Seam Forge Spring Roo Play!
Scaffolding One-Time Continuous One-time
(as module)
OTF compile No No Yes
Persistence JPA JPA JPA
Morphia
User interface JSF Spring-MVC HOME-Grown
GWT (JSP-like)
Full Text Search No Solr ElasticSearch
Lucene
REST support No Spring-rest Rest-easy
Deployment JBOss AS Servlet container Embedded netty
Glassfish AS GAE Gae
Cloud Foundry Servlet container

44. Feature Seam Forge Spring Roo Play!
Backed up JBOss Springsource zenexity
Maturity Low High high
Documentation Low Medium Medium
Books NO “Roo in action” “Introducing the
Early access Play Framework”
License LGPL Apache 2 Apache 2
Mailing List 6 messages in 132 messages in ~550 messages in
last month last month last month*
*Inc. announcements on usage, etc.