Does SEAM really make things easier?

[mchisty.mchisty.gmail.com]

As I was exploring through SEAM, I found a few things:

Point 1: Seam generates a lot of XML files for every XHTML pages, the official doc does not provide any good explanation for that. Only thing they mention is that: Don't get scared by the XML configuration documents that were generated into the project directory. whereas in the examples that comes as bundled does not have such redundant XML files.

Point 2: SEAM official docs/tutorials do not provide any example of how to create a simple JBPM or, web service example. All they provide is just some code examples with explanation with that. But the real pain is when you try to develop a simple jbpm app from scratch, probably with an IDE like EClipse plus JBoss tools. Lots of errors shows up, need to Google a lot to fix those. No straightforward approach or, simple example is provided. All the 3 examples they provided is just how to create a SEAM app in seam-gen, eclipse and maven.

Point 3: At times, there were two groups of people: EJB lover and EJB hater. EJB was criticized for it's huge configuration issues and for not being simple. Well, Gavin King, Rod Johnson all gurus were on the non-ejb sides. My question is: does SEAM come with less configuration? Why someone should go for SEAM framework rather than Spring framework. Logics like Bijection, Convention-over-configuration are not strong enough.

[luxspes]

M M Islam Chisty wrote on Oct 27, 2009 13:22:


As I was exploring through SEAM, I found a few things:

Point 1: Seam generates a lot of XML files for every XHTML pages, the official doc does not provide any good explanation for that. Only thing they mention is that: Don't get scared by the XML configuration documents that were generated into the project directory. whereas in the examples that comes as bundled does not have such redundant XML files.

I guess then the correct question is: Does seam-gen really make thing easier?

Point 2: SEAM official docs/tutorials do not provide any example of how to create a simple JBPM or, web service example. All they provide is just some code examples with explanation with that. But the real pain is when you try to develop a simple jbpm app from scratch, probably with an IDE like EClipse plus JBoss tools. Lots of errors shows up, need to Google a lot to fix those. No straightforward approach or, simple example is provided. All the 3 examples they provided is just how to create a SEAM app in seam-gen, eclipse and maven.

We could argue if using jbpm (or maven) and wanting simplicity is not in itself, an oxymoron, but that will not really help you with your problems ;-)... Maybe you should try the commercially supported version of JBoss Tools...

Point 3: At times, there were two groups of people: EJB lover and EJB hater. EJB was criticized for it's huge configuration issues and for not being simple. Well, Gavin King, Rod Johnson all gurus were on the non-ejb sides. My question is: does SEAM come with less configuration? Why someone should go for SEAM framework rather than Spring framework. Logics like Bijection, Convention-over-configuration are not strong enough.

I guess it depends on your situation, if you feel that JSF and JPA/Hibernate are the right tools for your needs, then Seam is an excelent glue between them, if you want to integrate other technolgies, like JSPs and JDBC or IBATIs or Tapestry and JPA/EclipseLink, probably Spring is a better choice (but that could change once Weld is released). It also depends on the kind of application you want to build, if it mostly document oriented and inside an intranet, Richfaces is a good choice, if it is more like a highly interactive RIA running over internet, Flex/Flash might be better choices (and remember: you can integrate those with Seam/Spring in the server) or, if you do not want to worry about your customers not having the Flash plugin installed you can go for OpenLazlo, Capucchino or ExtJS...

Again: it all depends on your situation, your requirements, if you choose the right tools, you will feel comfortable with them, if you make the mistake of thinking that since you have a hammer all problems are nails, then you will have a bad experience.