Wednesday, September 19, 2007

JBoss Seam

After searching for a Java web framework that comes as close to Ruby on Rails as possible I've settled on JBoss Seam. It is still more complex than I would like since right now the applications I need to deliver in the coming months are very simple.

The appeal of Seam (for me anyway)
  • Annotation on the model for O/R mapping. No more hibernate XML mappings.
  • Generates the DB from the model. The reverse of how Rails does it but it's still DRY so I'm happy.
  • Annotations on the model for form validation. They don't seem as flexible as the Rails validations, e.g. I can't find a way to do the equivalent of validates_uniqueness_of or other complex validations using model annotations in Seam.
  • Testable. Hopefully unit testing the applications will now painless enough that I can get into the habit of doing it.
  • Automated builds out of the box. Comes with ant build script for common tasks.