Ken and the Expert Group have done a great job in making EJB 3.1 easier to use and Ken has been also easing learning it through a number of short notes: [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7]. Ken's latest addition is an Overview with Samples where he covers all the highlights. So, if you are curious about EJB 3.1, check Ken's Overview and try it on GlassFish v3 Preview.

Thanks to Ed for the tip, and, for related entries, check the EJB3 and javaee6 tags.

Not exactly the Antipodes but I think we can argue we have the whole world covered... While FISL is hosted in Porto Alegre, Jazoon will be held in Zurich. Check out the Jazoon Home Page and Schedule and check Alexis' List of Talks related to GlassFish. And, if you are on the other side, check GlassFish @FISL!

Now that JSF 2.0 is Final and is is easily accessible in GFv3 Preview, it is a good time to learn more about it, so here is a set of useful links:

Also, all related TA entries are tagged JSF... And, please send us feedback on the spec or the implementation to help us with the Fit and Finish.

Adam's Java EE (5/6) book (Real World Java EE Patterns) is now available. The book uses GlassFish (v3) and NetBeans for its examples, which are all available online at Kenai. The book is an example of self-publishing (through Lulu) and you can buy it online in either electronic or paper form. More details at Adam's announcement. This is the second book based on JavaEE 6 (due for release in late September); the previous one is Antonio's Beginning Java™ EE 6 Platform with GlassFish™ 3: From Novice to Professional. More GlassFish book's tagged Book.

The Proposed Final Draft specification for JSR 299 has been submitted to the JCP. See Gavin's Announcement and Overview and/or download the document. Still unfolding is the relationship between 299, JavaEE 6 and JSR 330; see the comments at Gavin's post for some ideas, and you can also compare the results and comments between the votes for 299 and for 330. I'll post when there is something public to share.

The GlassFish v3 Preview release is now available. This is an Early Access release of Java EE 6 - Welcome to JavaOne 2009! Check out the Download Page. Also see the page on JavaEE 6 Standards, the Docs and Resources, the GFv3 Document Set, and the SDK Release Notes, and the GFv3 Release Notes.

The release comes in two bundles, corresponding to the JavaEE 6 Web Profile and the JavaEE 6 full specification. The size of the bundle varies depending on packaging and features but ranges from 40MB to 60MBs. Remember that you can start with the "small" release (i.e. web profile) and easily add the missing pieces via the integrated update center.

Three brief but important JCP news:

The JCP also approved additional transparency for JCP 2.7, which I believe is a very important part in running an Expert group for a number of reasons, including balancing the role of the EG lead.

The final news is the submission of JSR 330, Dependency Injection for Java. The relationship to JSR 299 is unclear to me at this point.

The Proposed Final Draft for Servlet 3.0 is now available from the official JSR 315 page. This is the version that will be implemented (*) in GlassFish v3 EA (aka as the JavaOne release). And, on the same topic, Shing Wai has a note explaining how web-fragment.xml works. This new feature is intended to provide pluggability of library jars.

(*) modulo bugs and (according to Rajiv) file upload.

The new (not yet published) Servlet 3.0 PFD also includes an expanded set of Security Annotations, to expand the existing annotations like @DeclareRoles and @RunAs with @DenyAll, @PermitAll, @RolesAllowed and @TransportProtected. Check Shing Wai Shing Wai's writeup for details.

I'll post when the actual Servlet 3.0 PFD document is available.

One release at a time, all the projects are getting ready for JavaOne... Paul announced the availability of Jersey 1.1.0 EA. It used to be that we had to remind people that it was possible to be the reference implementation and production ready; I think that is no longer necessary; the cumulative list of features for Jersey is very impressive, including APIs for Client, Server, Grizzly, WADL, JSON, Spring and Guice Integration, MIME Multipart, Apache HTTP Client, Apache Abdera, .... New for this release are improved EJB integration, better HTTPS with GlassFish and improved Scala integration.

The increased traffic in the USERS Mailing List shows the growing adoption. Check out Paul's Note for all details, and download the release using the information here, or wait a bit for its propagation to the update centers.

The Servlet 3.0 Expert Group has delivered its Proposed Final Draft to the JCP and it should be available later this week. In the meantime Rajiv has provided a brief update on the Latest Set of Changes. And, if you are attending JavaOne, check out TS-3790 presented by Jan, Greg and Rajiv; also see the Full Catalog... and don't forget the Unconference and Party.

Applications using the Spring framework have always been able to run happily in GlassFish, be it v2 or v3. Now with GlassFish v3 approaching a final release, new opportunities are coming along. In a follow-up to last week's entry on managed OSGi bundles, GlassFish architect Jerome Dochez takes it a little further by implementing the GlassFish service using Spring beans and invoking it using a Java EE 6 webapp. All with no OSGi or Spring dependency whatsoever. This detailed example uses Spring's extender bundle whose role is to target the Spring container for the Spring-based service implementation, and (this is what seems to me like the most interesting part), a simple web application that can simply inject this service with a standard @Resource annotation. Of course, this is no customized version of GlassFish and the service lookup uses OSGi services and a standard Java EE annotations. No GlassFish/Spring/OSGi API required. Powerful, yet very simple.

In his recent interview on OSGi interview JavaPosse.com, Peter Kriens (OSGi Director of Technology) mentions GlassFish v3 as an example of extending a runtime without using any API specific to that runtime. It's great to hear Peter likes the work done by the GlassFish v3 team!

Ryan's latest installement in his JSF 2.0 Preview series shows how to implement Custom Managed Beans through the new custom scope view and the managed-bean-scope element in faces-config.xml or via the @CustomScoped annotation.

The full series is:

• Part 1 - Packaging / Project Staging • Part 2.1 - Resources • Part 2.2 - Resource APIs • Part 2.3 - Resources and EL • Part 3 - Publish/Subscribe Event System • Part 4 - Resource Re-location • Part 5 - EDR1 Potpourri • Part 6 - Implicit Navigation • Part 7 - Custom Managed Beans (latest addition)

PS. The picture is that of the Tuxtla Statuette, which is from the La Mojarra; used here as Mojarra is the project name of the GlassFish JSF implementation.

One of the challenges in spec development is how to best leverage other specs that are being developed simultaneously, within the real-life constraints of schedules, resources, time-zones, etc. This is another situation where transparency and open-source is helping significantly - plus the usual hard work of the EGs. A case in point is EJB 3.1 and JAX-RS 1.1 where the EGs have been working to allow the use of POJO sesion beans as resource (root) or provider classes in Jersey, deployed as a plain WAR. This allows very natural Java programming, things like this root class

@Stateless @Path("ssb") public class StatelessSessionRootResource { @Context private UriInfo ui; @GET public String get() { return "GET: " + ui.getRequestUri().toASCIIString(); } }

Check out full details in Paul's Glassfish v3, EJB 3.1 and Jersey and in Ken's JAX-RS and EJB.

EJB3.1 and JAX-RS are two of the new JavaEE6 features you will be able to try GFv3 in EA by JavaOne - see you there! And the photo? Another great partnership, this one in Mixed Doubles in Badminton: Kim Dong-moon and Ra Kyung-min :-)

John has posted an Update on GF v3, which will come in multiple releases, like v2. The first release (v3) is driven by JavaEE 6 compliance and the specs schedule; we will have a solid EA by JavaOne but the final release is scheduled for the end of September. GFv3 will also have the embedded API and the Web Profile. The next release after that (v3.1) will add HA Clustering, Centralized Admin and more product features.

Check out the Schedule details and the Functional Specs. And keep giving us feedback on the release so v3 is as good as you deserve.