ORM v. EJB

[Dave Trussell]

I've seen it posted here and other places that using EJB is too hard/involved/cumbersome and that ORM frameworks like Hibernate, Cayenne, etc. are so much better/easier/faster to develop with.

I see where Sun has published their EJB 3.0 specification (dated June of this year). Will the new spec "catch up" to ORM (if, indeed, it is behind)? Does Sun have blinders on? Or are they just beating their heads against the wall?

Dave

[Gavin King]

Myself and Mike Keith from TopLink are involved in the EJB3 expert group, along with representatives of the traditional J2EE container vendors. Our goal has been to help EJB "catch up", certainly :-)

[Robert Chisholm]

Hi Gavin,

Would you have any recommendations, advice or warnings for shops that are currently choosing their J2EE environment; specifically re: O/R vs EJB?

If a shop had the chance to start all over again... going from a heavy-weight App-Server/Entity Bean config to something else, what would you suggest?

My current attitude is (for better or worse): go lightweight (POJO) when possible, layer on SLSB if necessary to glean the benefits of the EJB container (ex: Service Facade)... and wait for the switch to EJB 3.0.

Thanks, and keep up the great work.

Oh, one other thing... what are your current thoughts on the Spring framework?
[ September 01, 2004: Message edited by: Robert Chisholm ]