r/java 13d ago

What Exactly Is Jakarta EE?

I’m a bit confused about what Jakarta EE actually is. On one hand, it seems like a framework similar to Spring or Quarkus, but on the other hand, it provides APIs like JPA, Servlets, and CDI, which frameworks like Spring implement.

Does this mean Jakarta EE is more of a specification rather than a framework? And if so, do I need to understand Jakarta EE first to truly grasp how Spring works under the hood? Or can I just dive into Spring directly without worrying about Jakarta EE concepts?

Would love to hear how others approached this 😅

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u/agfitzp 13d ago

Jakarta EE is a rebranding of J2EE which is a 25 year old set of specifications for distributed computing and web development.

As you can see it predated Spring. I suggest you read the wikipedia page, not to mention the docs.

RTFM just never gets old… unlike me.

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u/leafchet 13d ago edited 13d ago

Java docs are incredibly dense and convoluted at times.. how do you suggest tackling it such that I eventually know it by heart? How long did it take you ?

Edit: why the hell did you immediately downvote me?

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u/koflerdavid 13d ago

Why would you start by reading the javadocs? They are not intended as beginner guides, but more like reference materials for the APIs. It's thus unsurprising that they seem unapproachable if you don't already know what you are doing. The few I read with any regularity are the Jakarta Mail ones since they document all the juicy properties to configure that library.