Part 1. Teeing off with Seam

Many excellent frameworks exist to support the development of web-based Java applications. Chapter 1 presents Seam and explains how it manages to stand above this crowd by incorporating all of your existing Java Enterprise experience into an innovative and modernized rendition of the Java EE platform. You learn how Seam uncovers the platform’s tremendous capabilities, buried underneath layers of complexity for more than a decade, through the use of annotations, interceptors, and configuration by exception. EJB 3 components, Groovy scripts, and anything in between can participate in this lightweight, POJO-based programming model. After this introduction, you are taken through a Seam example, emphasizing how Seam removes infrastructure code and allows components to focus on pure business logic. The chapter also highlights ways in which Seam improves the development process, getting you to your target sooner.

In today’s fast-paced world, we often have to show results before completely understanding what we are doing. To help you get started, chapter 2 highlights Seam’s project generator tool and shows you how to use it to create a functional, database-oriented application without any coding involved. You are given a glimpse of a Seam project’s structure and get a chance to feel out the development cycle by making a few customizations. While you won’t have a lot of opportunity to write code in part 1, it will build up enough anticipation to prepare you to take on the commitment of learning a new framework. The best part is, you will have plenty of time to do so since your boss will be drooling over the application you create in the second chapter. That same application also serves as a working model for you as you explore Seam.