[FRIDAY] Struts.Next

[Ted Husted <te...@gmail.com>]

OK, once more, with feeling :) 

For the record, so that there is no mistake, the PMC did decide that
Struts Shale is *not* Struts.Next. Today, the only Struts.Next is
Struts 1.3.

Craig McClanahan and David Geary will be speaking at Java One this
year. The title of the talk is "Shale: The Next Struts?" But, by
"next" they mean the next big thing. They do not mean Struts.Next.

While it is not the next Struts Core, Struts Shale *is* a part of the
Apache Struts Project.

Shale is one of a growing number of Struts subprojects. Like Struts
1.3, Shale is unreleased software, so the best place to discuss it is
the dev list. While we tolerate user-type questions about unreleased
software on the user list, we do prefer that posts be addressed to the
dev list until the software is released. When a post refers to a
subproject or the next release, it's good practice to use subject
keywords, like [Struts Flow], [BSF Scripting], [Struts 1.3], and
[Struts Shale].

Also for the record, it *is* appropriate to discuss JSF on the Struts
User list. Just as it was appropriate to discuss JSTL when it first
came out. JSF is the latest Java technology. Struts has always
supported the latest Java technologies, and JSF will be no exception.

When we shipped the original taglibs, most teams were still using
scriplets. Struts provided technology that many teams needed to move
away from scriptlets and toward taglibs. Years later, when JSTL become
available, we brought out Struts EL, to help teams migrate from custom
tags to standard tags.

When Java introduced the DataSource interface, Struts added support
for an innovative DataSource manager. Later, as other options became
available, we deprecated and removed ours, so that teams could move to
newer, better implementations.

Struts has always supported innovative technologies. First it was
taglibs, then DataSources and JSTL, and now its the Bean Scripting
Framework and JavaServer Faces. Through third-party extensions (any of
which I for one would love to see us host here), Struts also supports
XLST, Velocity, client-side menuing, Spring injection, and the SSL
protocol. How to use technologies like these with your Struts
applications are welcome topics on the Struts User list. Always have
been, always will be.

Now that JSF is available, Struts, true to its tradition, is again
providing support for the latest Java technologies. We provide a
Struts Faces taglib to help teams migrate from Struts Taglibs to JSF,
one page at a time. (Struts 1.x or JSF is not an either/or
proposition!) As mentioned, we are also working on Struts Shale, for
teams that want to get a fresh start.

Does Struts Shale mean that we aren't working on Struts Core? No, of
course it doesn't. Like everyone else, most of the Struts Committers
have five years worth of applications to maintain. (Yes, we do eat our
own dog food!) It will be a very long time before those applications
are ready to migrate to anything as innovative as Struts Shale.

In the meantime,  work continues on Struts Core 1.3.x and beyond
[http://struts.apache.org/roadmap.html].  All development discussions
do take place on dev@struts.apache.org and nowhere else. If you want
to see how the sausages are made, feel free to subscribe
[http://struts.apache.org/using.html#Lists].

To learn more about how Struts and other Apache projects operate, see 

* How the ASF Works [http://apache.org/foundation/how-it-works.html], 
* Rules for Revolutionaries
[http://incubator.apache.org/learn/rules-for-revolutionaries.html],
and
* The Struts Project Bylaws [http://struts.apache.org/bylaws.html].

HTH, Ted.

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