What is an portable application?

[Mellon Sun]

In the JSR 220: Enterprise JavaBeans TM,Version 3.0 Java Persistence API Version 3.0, Final Release.

"portable application" appears in it many times, so what exactly an portable application is?

[Christophe Verré]

An application which follows the persistence specification instructions.

For example, page 19 : Portable applications should not expect the order of lists to be maintained across persistence contexts unless the OrderBy construct is used and the modifications to the list observe the specified ordering. The order is not otherwise persistent.

If your application expects the list to be ordered, even without using OrderBy, then it's not portable. It might work on persistence provider A, but might not work on persistence provider B.

[Chaminda Amarasinghe]

Generally the characteristic "Portable" means ability to migrate your application from one environment to another. in ejb world environment means app server.

so if you write your ejbs or entitys that adhere the spec, that means theoretically your application is portable. bocos all app servers must follow the spec.

but unfortunately there is no such app server even sun's glassfish