I recently noticed several new books based on GlassFish Server, like Yuli's book on Java EE and DBs, Using MySQL and GlassFish and Antonio's book on Java EE 6 with GF v3. Looking a bit more I also found that David also has a new book on NetBeans 6 and Java EE 5 (w/ GF) and Adam has one on the Netbeans 6 RCP that also uses GlassFish in many places.

Below is a quick table of the books I know (in random order); please (continue to) send me omissions and I will update it.

Added - Masoud's GlassFish in Action is in Early Access Edition.

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!

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 :-)

Progress on both sets of Web Services specifications for JavaEE 6... On the RESTful side, Marc reports on a new specification draft. As usual, the JSR311 Website has full details including the Editors Draft and a Changelog. Marc points out there is still work pending in the integration with Servlet 3.0, EJB 3.1 and JSR 299. On the SOAP side, Rama announces a new implementation of the latest JAX-WS 2.2 Draft.

The presenter at tomorrow's webinar is Ted Goddard; he will detail how to write rich interface applications using Ajax and Comet using JSF and ICEfaces and will also describe how these relate to the new JSF 2.0 specification in JavaEE 6. Presentation at 11am US Pacific, at TheAquarium Channel. Full details (and recordings) at the Show Page.

The Executive Committee for EE/SE has approved the Public Review for JSR 316, the Java EE 6 Specification. The vote was 12 YES, 1 NO, 1 ABSTAIN, and 1 NO-VOTED; see Ballot Results. You can download the PRD draft, and, as always, your feedback to the Executive Committee and to the JSR316 EG are very welcome.

The JCP process defines two specification processes. The changes to JSP 2.1 for Java EE 6 are done using the Maintenance process in the JSR 245 EG led by Kin-Man. There are two sets of changes: to the EL (Kin-Man's Overview, formal ChangeList), and JSP proper (Overview, ChangeList).

Both sets of changes are small; probably the biggest change is the addition of the ability to invoke methods in EL expressions. The review ends on March 3rd, please send feedback to Kin-Man.

Although I already mentioned the News on Friday I think it deserves its own entry with a more noticeable title.

WebBeans is no more; the specification created by the JSR 299 Expert Group (under Gavin King) has been revised substantially and has been renamed to Java Context and Dependenty Injection. Perhaps a less catchy name but, as Gavin indicates, this has been done... ...to better reflect the fact that the focus of 299 is the definition of services that apply to all EE component types, rather than the creation of a new component model Check out Gavin's announcement for an overview and download the draft from the PRD page. Also check out Roberto's commentary. The PR for 299 ends on Feb 9th, the EC vote is Feb 6th to the 9th.

Very significant (forward!) movement on the Java EE 6 spec: Roberto reports that the JavaEE 6 Public Review Draft is now available for download from the JCP site. He, and the rest of the JSR 316 group, solicits your feedback at "javaee-spec-feedback at sun dot com". Two specs are available: one for the complete Java EE 6 and one for the Web Profile.

The new Web Profile currently includes the following specs: Servlet 3.0, JSP 2.2, EL 1.2, JSR-45, JSTL 1.2, JSF 2.0, JSR-250 1.1, EJB 3.1 Lite, JTA 1.1 and JPA 2.0. The list is not yet final, though, and there are three specifications that are still being discussed very actively.

JAX-RS has been very well received and is already implemented in several products, including our own Jersey. JAX-RS (1.1) is in the full JavaEE 6 but the EG decided it was too early to include it in the Web profile at this point. The situation with BeansValidation is slightly different: the spec just went into Public Review and, although it looks good, the JavaEE EG is waiting for feedback before deciding what to do.

The area that is still changing the most is JSR 299, previously known as WebBeans and now known as Java Contexts and Dependency Injection. Gavin and the EG has incorporated Extensive Feedback and the JavaEE 6 EG is soliciting feedback from the community on its inclusion on the platform spec. Please consider downloading the specification and providing feedback to both the JSR 299 and the JSR 316 Expert Groups.

Roberto also points that they are a bit behind but that a new schedule has not yet been created. Overall, though, these are very good news. Onward towards GlassFish v3 :-)

A compilation of today's news of interest:

EJB 3.1 continues to make forward progress. Ken gave an overview of EJB 3.1 as part of last Thursday's GlassFish Day (slides, recording), and Mahesh pointed out the implementation Supports Singleton as part of the GFv3 Prelude Launch Blogfest. Actually, as Noted by Ken, the following are one Update Center click away from you: WAR packaging, Singleton, No Interface View and Portable global JNDI names.

So, check it out and let Ken and Mahesh know how it works for you.

In times of interesting discussions around support and monetization of Open Source, the value of standard APIs is as strong as ever. So Sekhar's latest entry on Java EE verification tools should be of interest to many, wether they use GlassFish or not.

The "verifier" tool validates a Java EE application against a set of assertions to produce a report on the level of portability of the application. It is accessible via a command-line tool bundled in every copy of GlassFish, in NetBeans, and also available as an ANT task. One could use the ANT approach in a continuous build environment or simply archive the results in the VCS to track down when non-portable modifications are introduced.

Finally, you can apply those very same checks at deploy-time in GlassFish using the --verify=true option of the asadmin deploy option or simply check the "Run Verifier" box in the graphical admin tool.

Alexis announced Antonio's JavaEE 5 Book in May 07 but I can't find the TA entry - probably too busy with the JavaOne 07 events. Fortunately, he is giving us another chance! The second edition of Antonio's Java EE 5 book is now available and it comes with more content on GlassFish Server - still only in french, though. Check out the details of the new edition at Antonio's Announcement, at Eyrolles (the publisher) and at Amazon.fr.

Book announcements are tagged Book. I'm planning a recap entry on the topic in a couple of days.

A compilation of today's news of interest:

Kawazu writes about the experience of taking an App that started as a Web App using the Spring Framework and changing it to Exploit more JavaEE features, specifically EJBs. The goal was not to remove the use of Spring but rather to leverage more effectively the Java EE support (like in the GlassFish Server and the NetBeans IDE). I am beginning to see more positive indicators of warming up to EJBs. The JavaOne session on EJB 3.1 was in one of the big rooms and it was packed; check out Ken's previews from March, and stay tuned for updates in the next weeks.

BTW, note that you can install the Spring Framework on GlassFish Using the Update Center.