Now we will look at how enterprise software projects are being developed.

Following the approach of meeting the needs of real-world customers, we will face the question of the purpose of the application that we want to develop. The motivations and purposes of the enterprise systems need to be clear before immediately going into technology details. Otherwise, software is just being developed for the sake of developing software. Sadly, this is the case way too often. By focusing on business logic and the principles of Domain-Driven Design, as wonderfully described in the book by Eric Evans, we will ensure that the software we are building will meet the business demands.

Only after the application's purpose and responsibility is clear to the stakeholders, can we focus on the technological aspects. Teams should favor technologies that can not only implement the business use cases appropriately but also reduce the amount of work and overhead. Developers should be able to focus on the business, not the framework and technology. Good frameworks support solving business problems in a lean way and don't want the developer's attention themselves.

The chosen technology should also support productive development workflows as much as possible. This not only includes automation and fast development turnarounds but also the ability to embrace modern infrastructure, such as Linux containers. In Chapter 4, Lightweight Java EE, and Chapter 5, Container and Cloud Environments with Java EE, we will have a closer look into the nuts and bolts of modern environments and how Java EE supports them.