9 major differences between MVC 1.0 and JAX-RS

The major differences between MVC 1.0 and JAX-RS are:

- An MVC controller is a JAX-RS resource annotated with the type/method @Controller annotation (javax.mvc.annotation.Controller).

- The @Controller can be used at type or method level. This is useful if you have a JAX-RS resource with a subset of methods that are actually MVC controllers. This is a hybrid class acting as a JAX-RS resource and as an MVC controller.

- MVC classes must be CDI-managed beans only (not JAX-RS native classes, EJBs, managed beans etc). This restrictions is true for hybrid classes also. Such classes must be CDI-managed beans.

- A String returned by an MVC controller is interpreted as a view path rather than text content (e.g. pointing a JSP page). So, pay attention to this aspect, because JAX-RS resource may return content text, while MVC controllers don't.

- The default media type for a response is assumed to be text/html, but otherwise can be declared using @Produces just like in JAX-RS.

- A MVC controller that returns void must be decorated with type/method @View annotation to indicate the view to display.

- We can encapsulates a view path as well as additional information related to its processing via the javax.mvc.Viewable class.

- The method toString() is called on other Java types and the result interpreted as a view path.

- An MVC controller that returns a non-void type may also be decorated with @View. In this case, the @View point the default view for the controller. The default view will be used ONLY if you return null from your non-void controller.