On 08/12/06, *Andrew S. Townley* <[EMAIL PROTECTED] > No kidding. Many people still fail to realize that annotations are > really just meta-programming. I think they can be useful at times (take > the way NUnit allows the testcase annotation rather than needing > reflection to determine a test based on the name), but when you have > more annotations than you do source code, you're just asking for > trouble. Aspects are a much cleaner solution to this sort of thing, but > there again, you've a degree of freedom between the code and the aspects > that you don't have with annotations. > > Building a framework "to support SOA" solely around annotations is sheer > madness...
One of the things about any type of meta-data is that tools can interpret it differently. I don't think that Java EE has any distinct advantage to offer with it's current model over some other things that I have more desires to use. But, by switching to a meta data model for the software, they can start to address some of the platform issues because the software that uses annotations can now be treated evolutionary as the platform changes without having to be edited or rewritten entirely. It's not a completely finished product either. XML is being used as meta-programming. The primary issue for me, is whether the meta-data has a useful set of mappings that are coherent in all usages. There are some people who are using XML in non-coherent designs just like people construct services in non-coherent ways. The end result is, of course, CRUD that has to be reworked. Gregg Wonderly
