Divide and Conquer
The most basic and simple way of dealing with complexity still is: "Divide and conquer". Layering and modularization are common architectural principles.
Slicing an application into minor reusable composing parts is easier said than realized. Many modern Java technologies like Hibernate, the JSF and Servlet API, introduce their own component models, configuration artifacts, lifecycles and constrains - but no means for splitting configuration and compoments into different modules.
Antidoto consists of different subsystems, each one providing a thin layer enabling modularization for different technologies.