Despite its fantastic qualities as a development and execution environment, z2’s adoption is very low. That of course does not at all stop us from improving it further (as we are actively benefiting from it anyway).
Whenever I talk about z2, the feedback is typically in one of two categories.
The first one is the “I don’t get it”-category.
There was a time when running builds was such a natural ingredient of software development to me, that I would have been in that category as well. So I forgive them their ignorance.
The other category is the “Great idea – … to bad I cannot use it”-category.
Being a disruptive approach and knowing how change averse the development community is (contrary to common belief), it is natural that z2 has to fight with adoption. Specifically, the more profound critique towards z2 is about being too big, too proprietary, too non-standard.
So this is what version 3 is all about:
Less and more focussed
The one thing z2 is about is removing obstacles between code and execution. You should only think about code, modules, software structure. In order to enhance the “do one thing and do it well” qualities of z2, we will strip of capabilities that may not be totally obvious (like for example z2’s JTA implementation, support for worker processes) and either drop those completely or move them into addons.
Better and Friendlier Open Source
Z2 has always been open source. In version 3 all package names will be “org.z2env” and, possibly more interesting than that cosmetic change, we will make sure that there will be no use of libraries with a problematic license like GPL. Only Apache 2 or compatible licenses will be contained.
Integrating with Tomcat
Previously, z2 embedded Jetty as its preferred Web Container. Jetty is a great Web container and its embeddability is (rightfully) legendary. The vast majority of Java developers use Tomcat though.
With version 3 we found a cool way of hooking z2 up with your ordinary Tomcat installation and its configuration, so that Web applications defined in z2 work next to whatever else you have deployed.
If TomEE would not make such harsh structural assumptions on application deployment – assumptions we cannot agree with, and much less adhere to – we would even have EJBs in z2.
That is no big deal though – as I have the vague feeling that EJB enthusiasts are probably even less likely to adopt z2.
Getting Started
Enough talk! While there is still a lot to do (porting the Spring add-on and all the sample applications), a simple Getting Started guide can be found here
https://redmine.z2-environment.net/projects/z2env/wiki/Getting_Started
Willing to invest 15 Min into something cool? Here it is!
Feedback greatly welcome!
z the world 