playframework/Play20 — comment on commit d12106ebdc57f7f42d12ce077c7b17109caefcee
File: framework/play/src/main/scala/play/api/mini/Setup.scala line 62
By pk11:

besides annotations being a popular solution for java web apps, the other motivation was coming from Typesafe stack. We would like to provide a way for java akka users to drop in play for exposing stuff via http in existing vanilla, non-play projects. Without a mini support this would not be possible.