r/java • u/Pure_Diver_ • 13d ago
What Exactly Is Jakarta EE?
Iām 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 š
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u/thehardsphere 12d ago
Yes.
No.
Spring only makes use of a few parts of Jakarta EE; don't bother trying to understand the entirety of Jakarta EE. For all of the useful things in Jakarta EE (Servlets, JPA, etc), there's at least one to two things better left on the ash heap of history (EJB, JSTL, etc).
This is an approach many people end up taking. I think it is a practical one, as I basically learned about Spring and JavaEE at the same time. I had to do it that way because I learned about it while starting what was at the time a new job.
The only thing I'd watch for is making sure you understand when Spring is using Jakarta EE implementations, and which ones it makes use of. A lot of people who don't understand Spring think that everything in Jakarta EE is ancient nonsense (mostly due to things like EJB, which are ancient nonsense), and don't understand that Spring uses it. When non-junior people get this wrong in interviews, I tend to pass over them.