The main goals of Java EE 7

Since May 2006, the Java EE platform has known remarkable evolution in terms of implementation. First, with Java EE 5, it greatly simplified the development of applications by allowing the transformation of a simple Java class (POJO class) into a business object through annotations or XML descriptions. Still in the line of simplification, Java EE 6 helps enrich annotations and introduces new concepts such as pruning, RESTful Web Services, CDI, EJB Lite, and configuration by exception and web profiles. This allows the platform to provide many easy-to-deploy and consume services. After the success of Java EE 6, the JCP (Java Community Process) envisaged turning the platform into a service by providing an infrastructure for cloud support. But, due to lack of significant progress in the concerned specifications, it revised its objectives. It is from the perspective of preparing the migration of the Java EE platform to the cloud that Java EE 7 focuses on productivity and HTML5 support. Having missed the big goal (that is, the migration to the cloud), it will reach its new goals through completion of Java EE 6 features and addition of some new specifications.

Productivity

Productivity in Java EE 7 has been improved upon in many ways. By simplifying some APIs such as JMS and JAX-RS, Java EE 7 platform significantly reduces boilerplate code. As you will notice in the chapters that follow, sending a JMS message can fit on one line and no longer requires the creation of several objects as was the case with JMS 1.1, where it was first necessary to create a Connection, Session, MessageProducer, and TextMessage.

Java EE 7 has integrated new APIs to better address the needs of enterprise applications relative to the processing of large amounts of data. We have, for example, the concurrency utilities, which allow the creation of managed threads within a container and give developers the ability to break down large processes into smaller units that can be computed concurrently. Similarly, there is a Java API for batch processing to manage bulk and long-running jobs.

Finally, Java EE 7 is enriched in annotations and has set a focus on configuration by exception. Whether it is for data source or batch processing, compatible Java EE 7 containers provide a number of default objects. It is even possible to produce complex applications with minor configuration.

In short, the new platform frees the developer from performing a number of tasks and the creation of several types of objects that are required for setting up an application.

HTML5 support

Some people might wonder why the support of HTML5 is so important. The answer is simple: HTML5 is the latest release of the HTML standard. More so, it offers new features that ease the building of more powerful and suitable web applications. For example, via the <audio> and <video> elements of HTML5, you can play, pause, and resume audio and video media content without the use of a third-party plugin such as Flash. Through the canvas element and WebGL library (a subset of OpenGL), you can easily integrate 2D and 3D graphics in your website. With regards to communication between the client and server, the perfect integration of WebSocket protocol in HTML5 allows us to build a web application with full-duplex P2P communication and get over some limitations of HTTP for real-time communication. Using this protocol, you will have no difficulty in realizing chat applications or other web applications that require real-time communication between the client and server, such as trading and e-commerce platforms. In terms of data exchange, the native support of JSON format in HTML5 simplifies processing of information and reduces the size of documents. Many other areas have been improved, but for now we will only mention these ones.

Given all these innovations, the support for HTML5 features was added in JSF (JavaServer Faces), a new API was added to Java EE 7 platform to build WebSocket-driven applications and another API to process JSON data format.