[TALK] Java Web Framework Sweet Spots - by Matt Raible

[Michael Jouravlev <jm...@gmail.com>]

Java Web Framework Sweet Spots - by Matt Raible
http://www.virtuas.com/articles/webframework-sweetspots.html

I selected relevant responses by the following representatives:

JSF, Jacob Hookom
Seam, Gavin King
Spring MVC, Rob Harrop
Spring Web Flow, Rob Harrop and Keith Donald
Stripes, Tim Fennell
Struts Action 1, Don Brown
WebWork, Patrick Lightbody
Wicket, Eelco Hillenius

Their notes on Struts, WebWork and action-type frameworks in general:
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While promoting JSF, Jacob agrees that for read-only or
not-so-stateful applications an action framework might suit better.
Struts is his choice primarily because of wide acceptance. He also
thinks that WebWork (future Struts Action 2) is better in practice.

Gavin thinks that Struts was "innovative in its time but has failed to
reinvent itself. It was always way, way too overly complex to bind
model data to the view. The course-grained event model was OK at the
time, but fine-grained events are a better approach today. [WebWork
is] Struts++, missed its time. XWork was some great thinking at the
time, but it is dated now."

Spring MVC and Spring Web Flow: these guys PR too much about their own
stuff. Even when asked to describe situations where their product
might not be the best solution, or when directly asked about
experience with other frameworks, they still plug their product in
again and again.

Tim says: "I found very little to like about Struts. I spent a lot
more time working around issues with Struts than I gained in
productivity from using Struts. WebWork appears to be much higher
quality, but its documentation is pretty sparse, making it hard to
ramp up quickly or to find out how to use advanced features."

Patrick was refreshingly direct and honest, pointing out current
issues with WebWork and good features of other frameworks. He did not
mention that Struts sucks. Guess who did? See below.

Eelco does not like all action-type frameworks: "Model 2 frameworks
suck. I used them for years, ... but I totally lost my belief in them.
Model 2 frameworks are highly procedural, and programmers don't learn
object orientation properly from using them. I would rather hire
someone who coded Swing for a few years than someone who primarily
worked with model 2 frameworks because I would expect the Swing guy to
be a better coder in general. Working with model 2 frameworks means
going from hack to hack and back again, and the amount of copy 'n
paste code it generally results in is something that makes any serious
coder sad. If I had to pick any model 2 framework, I would probably
pick Stripes, which at least got some of the most annoying aspects of
model 2 out of the way."

Michael.

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