InfoQ: Presentation: Transaction Management Strategies in Mission Critical Applications

InfoQ: Presentation: Transaction Management Strategies in Mission Critical Applications

Juergen Hoeller is one of most respected guru in Java programming landscape. Most of his reputation is duly earned: after all, he co-designed and is still heavily involved in the current Java programming standard framework, Spring Framework.

In Java society, a framework dictates thought leadership. An application framework is, actually, encapsulation of commonly defined best programming and design practices. An application framework like Spring greatly reduced the learning curve of commonly accepted Java programming practices and allowed software veterans to deliver software with increased productivity as well.

OK, now that I have done the praising part, let us begin with a little bashing. In this presentation, Juergen keeps mentioning different Transaction strategies, which is detailed and shows that he indeed knows his stuff, but one of Juergen's remark sounds a little alarming. Juergen seem to dismiss the importance of distributed transactions, saying that XA is needed in very few circumstances.

While I do agree partially on this part, an expert like him should be more careful in not misleading people. While you can certainly say that 90% of Java Web Applications don't need Distributed Transactions, you are misleading people. Because you forgot to mention that the rest 10% are composed of more high profile, and more profitable software projects.

Let me put it in another way. Are we Java Developers competing with PHP guys? PHP doesn't have XA as well, and they are doing just fine. If your software project can be safely implemented by using either Java or PHP, which 90% of time will be the case, then yes, you don't need EJB, and certainly don't need XA. But if you are lucky enough to climb to a strategic position like VP or CIO, you will regret that in your former career you haven't structured your IT systems so that distributed transaction propagation can be enabled.

And you, Juergen, should be fair when you try to dismiss the importance of EJB, XA and middleware. Because you are not ignorant.