Re: EJB3 Build. Failure to maintain EJB3 plugin.

[Dan Greening <gr...@bigtribe.com>]

> Todd Orr schrieb:
>> I understood that ejb3 functionality will not be built into the
>> ejb-plugin until the spec is final. It looks like it's all set
>> (http://www.theserverside.com/news/thread.tss?thread_id=40199). When
>> can we expect the ejb3 integration in the plugin?

> From: Tim Kettler <ti...@udo.edu>
> what EJB3 specific functionality are you talking about?

Our whole company switched to EJB3, even though JBoss's EJB3 was in  
Alpha, because the advantages were so overwhelming.  You can run unit  
tests much more easily with EJB3, the ORM persistence layer is very  
natural, the code is much smaller, and fewer classes need to be  
declared.

The "official" maven EJB plugin requires META-INF/ejb-jar.xml.  But  
EJB3 does not require this file, and WORSE when that file is present,  
JBoss turns off some of the new EJB3 features.  So the official EJB  
plugin is a non-starter for serious EJB3 development.

A couple of us jointly wrote a patch to look for <ejbVersion>3.0</ 
ejbVersion> as a parameter to the EJB plugin.  When that value is  
present, it does not require META-INF/ejb-jar.xml, and we can use all  
the features of EJB3.

Unfortunately, the JIRA issue where this is discussed is marked  
"trivial": MEJB-6 (http://jira.codehaus.org/browse/MEJB-6).  The  
issue and our well-constructed (attached) patch has been ignored for  
3 months.  Who knows why Tim originally marked it "trivial", possibly  
because he wasn't using any of the new EJB3 features, but that poor  
choice of priority has probably doomed our patch to obscurity.  (Of  
course, anyone seriously using EJB3 wouldn't think it was trivial.)   
Several people have asked for this patch to be applied, including Tim  
and Todd above, as well as myself and Wayne Fay.  Who is responsible  
for this plugin?  No one is assigned to fix it.

If it continues getting ignored, I recommending downloading the  
source for the EJB plugin, applying the patch, and running with  
that.  The advantages of EJB3 are too great to operate with the  
"official" EJB plugin.

Dan R. Greening, Ph.D.,  CEO BigTribe Corporation,  http:// 
dan.greening.name/contact.htm