Kai Wähner

Spring Integration has several different DSLs - Java, Groovy and Scala.

Cool, I did not know about the Groovy DSL yet. This is a way into the right direction. However, Groovy and Scala DSL are not production ready yet AFAIK. Furthermore, Spring Integration DSLs are no real DSLs and not easy to read compared to its competitors. Look at my slides, I have code examples from Spring Integration, Mule and Apache Camel.

As far as connectors, Springs list keeps getting bigger. And looking at the differences, the ones left are not ones that I think the majority of people would need. Not saying that they aren't needed, just by not as big as say JMS.

Well, Mule and Apache Camel also keep getting bigger :-) However, you are right. The most important technologies such as JMS, HTTP or File are supported by Spring Integration, too! For this reason I recommended Spring Integration in my slides and in my blog post (http://www.kai-waehner.de/blog/2012/01/10/spoilt-for-choice-which-integration-framework-to-use-spring-integration-mule-esb-or-apache-camel/) for Spring projects where you need exactly these connectors.

I have done a presentation about this question at CamelOne two weeks ago. You can find the slides here: http://www.kai-waehner.de/blog/2012/05/17/progress-report-from-camelone-2012-in-boston-apache-camel-activemq-servicemix-cxf/

Short summary: Spring Integration is perfect, if you need some integration features in your Spring project. In other cases (i.e. projects without Spring), IMO Apache Camel is besser due to several different DSLs, more connectors, and (IMO) a larger community.

I just wrote a blog post with my experiences using Apache Camel and Spring Integration (and Mule ESB):

Spoilt for Choice: Which Integration Framework to use – Spring Integration, Mule ESB or Apache Camel?

CDI and Bean Validation are JEE 6 Standard Specifications. Nevertheless, I can use both within JEE 5 Application Servers (and also within Java SE) by just adding the libraries to the project.

Is this correct?

Are there any disadvantages of using both in JEE 5 application servers instead of JEE 6 application servers?

I have to use the Oracle 11 g Suite and JDeveloper. In the meantime, JDeveloper supports JSF 2.0, but I cannot find any support for Bean Validation or CDI. Nevertheless, this is not a problem. There is no IDE support (for code-generation, a step-by-step-guide, or whatever), but I can use these libraries by using the simple java editor. Right?

Thank you in advance for help...

Best regards,
Kai

The best PRO of Spring Integration is its very good integration in the Spring environment :-) IMO this is also the only PRO compared to Camel.

Camel offers several different DSLs, you can use Java, Groovy, Scala or Spring XML. I prefer the programming DSLs instead of XML, but that is a matter of taste. Another advantage of Camel is the numerous number of components (over 100 already, including modern cloud interfaces such as Amazon Web Services or Google App Engine).
Thus, I would use Spring Integration in a Spring project where everything else is Spring stuff (if all required components are available such as HTTP, JMS, and so on), and I would use Camel in all other projects.

As already mentioned in the last post, it does not make sense to compare Apache Camel or Spring Integration to Mule, ServiceMix, et al. If you are not aware of the differences between an integration framework and an Enterprise Service Bus, you maybe should read my blog post about exactly this question: http://www.kai-waehner.de/blog/2011/06/02/when-to-use-apache-camel/

Best regards,
Kai Wähner (Twitter: @KaiWaehner)

Hey guys,

I have created a report about my experiences with the SOA Certified Professional (SOACP) of soaschool.com. I think that everyone "doing" SOA should make this certification.

Here is my report: http://www.kai-waehner.de/blog/2011/02/01/first-hand-report-certification-soa-certified-professional-soacp-of-soaschool/

Best regards,
Kai Wähner (Twitter: @KaiWaehner)

Hey there,

I have got an application which uses Java SE 5 and Hibernate 2.5. I have to upgrade it to Java 6 and a newer version of Hibernate. What is the best strategy?

Should I directly upgrade to the newest stable release, or does it make more sense to just upgrade to 3.0?

Is it a lot of effort? I have no experience with Hibernate yet, but I already used Toplink JPA 1.0 in projects.
Can you give me some hints? Thank you...

Best regards,
Kai Wähner

Our project with SmartGWT is finished. We have some very good experiences with the widgets. And some bad experiences with the server-side integration and forum support.

I posted my "lessons learned" here:
http://www.kai-waehner.de/blog/2010/12/11/lessons-learned-smartgwt-2-3-component-library-for-google-web-toolkit-gwt/

So, SmartGWT is definitely worth trying! You have to decide if you also like the server-side integration, or just use the client-side.

Best regards,
Kai

Take a look at what's there and I think you'll change your mind.

Just wanted to give an update to other readers :-)

It is true: The documentation is much better than some time ago. The overall documentation (including the user guide and JavaDoc) deschribes many concepts and details.
I hope next we will get some good tutorials, best practices and maybe a book about SmartGWT :-)

Take a look at what's there and I think you'll change your mind.

I will do that. Let's see if I change my mind :-)

We use SmartGWT in our current project.

There are many widgets, and they are really nice and powerful. The server side support sounds nice true. At first...

BUT: The documentation of SmartGWT is very bad. Actually, documentation is barely available at all :-(
So, we have many problems to solve because of this. First, we wanted to buy support, but it is so exorbitant expensive!

So, you should evaluate SmartGWT, no question! But be aware, that using the server side features of it is not that simply - not because it is bad, but because there is a lack of documentation.

GAE does not support ICEFaces not RichFaces

Interesting... Why is it not supported? You have to add a JAR file the same way you have to add one for GWT. Can you please explain? Does it explicitly exclude some products / libraries?

If you use GWT, maybe you also are not able to use ExtGWT or SmartGWT?

MyFaces is same as mojjara (only an apache implementation)

I think, MyFaces is a project with a collection of sub-projects, including the JSF implementation, but also some other projects (e.g. for fancy components):
http://myfaces.apache.org/

The combination is possible, but some additional effort is necessary. Ask google for experiences... You should only choose this solution, if there is a real reason for it.
JSF has also many "fancy components", look at component libraries such as RichFaces, MyFaces, ICEFaces and so on! Only the implementation of the standard itself does not contain any "fancy components" :-)

By the way: GWT itself also contains only simple components. If you want to use some nice components, you have to use component libraries such as ExtGWT or SmartGWT.

I did some more research:

You do NOT need to use Servlets at all to communicate with a server (I was not aware of this before)! You can also use e.g. XML or JSON to communicate with a server. One of my colleagues used this possibility, because he had to communicate to a Ruby server, so Servlets were not available.
Therefore, you also should be able to use the Servlet version you want.

Hello,

we are using WebSphere Application Server 6.1 (which implements J2EE 1.4), so I need to know which version of GWT we can use. I fear that GWT 2.0 does use a newer version of the servlet specification?
I cannot find any information using a search engine. Can you please provide some information? Thank you...

Best regards,
Kai