Java EE - Seam 2 vs Seam 3 - which should I choose now?

Question

I'm starting new enterprise application. I've choosen the following technologies: jee6 (jsf + primefaces, ejb) and hibernate. I'll deploy on Glassfish 3.

Question is which Seam version should I choose? I know Seam 3 is the newest, but Seam 2 seems as it is being developed too. I quickly ran through Seam 2 and 3 docs, and Seam 2 looks much easier to me (especially security module)

Answer 1

If choosing between Seam 2 and Seam 3.

I would recomend going with Seam 2, and it is still being developed on, it will soon as I understand be releasing Seam 2.3 with support for JSF2, JBoss AS 7.1, etc...

Seam 2 is more productive and as you said easier to work with at the moment. How it will be after DeltaSpike is up and running might be another story.

I have also read they are considering to rename Seam 2.3 to Seam 4.

It is Seam 3 that is moving to DeltaSpike.

/Trind

Answer 2

Seam 2 is a dead road, the project now is donated to the Apache Foundation ans it's called DeltaSpike.

IMHO the best way is to use the standart, and J2EE 6 has almost everything that you need. There are several alternatives for security, you can try picketlink http://www.jboss.org/picketlink

Answer 3

Seam 3 is still lacking in lots of simple basics, whilst the overall patterns are perhaps better than Seam 2, I'm getting quite frustrated trying to do stuff that Seam 2 can do out of the box.

Answer 4

Seam 3 or seam 2 is not a valid question imo. What you should ask yourself is if you want cdi or seam 2. The answer is you want cdi. With that you get a multitude of benefits. They partly follow with using the standard in java ee. Especially when the spec was led by Gavin King and takes the best from seam 2, spring and other frameworks. You should actually read the whole jsr-299 spec it is really informative. Other huge benefits is all the great extensions and great stuff in the pipe like deltaspike.

I think it's obvious how much more promise cdi has. Seam 3 is nothing but some extra seasoning, while it can make the diffrence it is not what you should compare seam 2 with. There is no equivalent for extensions like seam 3 in seam 2. Seam 2 is not built to be that easy to extend.