A half-year after the approval of the Java EE 5 specification by the Java Community Process (JCP) and its debut this spring at JavaOne, debate is ongoing about the programming platform's relevance to SOA and how well suited it is to the style of development that increasingly favors lighter-weight tools and more rapid results.
A key goal of Java EE 5 was to simplify the programming model, especially for Web services. Although the previous version, J2EE 1.4, supported SOAP- and WSDL-based Web services, many found the model too complex. Nick Kassem, technology director for Web services at Sun Microsystems Inc. said the improvements to Java EE 5 better enable the loose coupling of services, while providing the robust technology that will be required to scale up Web services and build out an SOA.
