[kls]

I've not actually tried using Jersey/JAX, but it looks like a very clean setup for quickly writing low-latency JSON APIs.

I was a very early adopter of Jersey and JAX-RS and I have to say, it is one of the first API's that I have seen come out of Java that provides the rapid development and prototyping typical of Ruby or Python. If future Java API's take their queue from JAX-RS then Java will again become competitive. I trained a guy just last week on JAX-RS and had him up and running in less that a day. Only truly elegant designs can provide that level of simplicity while exposing the ability to accomplish the task you want without having to make compromises. JAX-RS is a gem in the Java world and I hope that future Java API's will follow suite.

As well Netbeans tooling for JAX-RS goes a long way to reduce development time. You can write a JPA annotated class and Netbeans will gen the schema as well as the REST service. Or you can write the schema and Netbeans will gen the JPA class and the service. While I am generally not a fan of reliance on tooling this is a case where it helps without pooping all over your code.