EJB3 meta model and JDK 1.4

[bill.burke]

EJB 3.0 relies heavily on Annotations as the way to define EJBs. The problem with this is that Annotation syntax is not available on JDK 1.4. So, what I will do is have a parallel JDK1.4 based meta model that we will apply using the JBoss AOP AnnotationCompiler and doclet tags.

This has two advantages

1) JDK 1.4 users can use EJB3
2) We can develop EJB 3 with older IDEs.

Bill

[bill.burke]

Enums will also be converted to JDk 1.4 using a common, well known pattern for defining Enums.

[adrian.brock]

In JDK 1.4, annotations added to the class file will only work if you have access
to the classloading mechanism.

e.g. running an EJB container in an applet would not give you access to the
classloading so you would need xml.

[bill.burke]

Not true at all. You just need the classloader and then do a getResource on that classloader to load it into javassist. Take a look at the code.

[adrian.brock]

> You just need the classloader

Getting hold of a classloader is a privileged operation. If anybody could do it, java
would be very insecure.

[bill.burke]

Then don't use the freakin shtuff in an applet. J2EE 1.5 is written towards JDK 1.5. This is an option to JDK 1.4 developers and to allow me to use JDK 1.4 and IDEA to code this shit up.

[juha]

How relevant is this? Eventually the managed environments will be in JDK 1.5, where the full annotation is available.

In the meanwhile it is an issue for JDK 1.4 based, but I can't think of an example that is using an EJB container in such a managed environment today...? Do we have such cases? If it becomes more common in the future, those solutions should be based on JDK 1.5.

[adrian.brock]

Applets are the acid test of our POJO middleware.

If it will run in an applet (with unsigned jars preferably) it will run anywhere.

[juha]

Applets are the acid test of our POJO middleware.

True. But is EJB3 part of that picture?

[bill.burke]

EJB3 can/should be able to run inside an applet, but only a JDK 1.5 based applet.