[ANN] WebWork 2.2.1: Released and Ready for Struts!

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

See
* http://blogs.opensymphony.com/webwork/2006/02/webwork_221_released.html

A companion release of XWork 1.1 is also available
* http://forums.opensymphony.com/thread.jspa?threadID=16919&tstart=0

-Ted.

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Re: [ANN] WebWork 2.2.1: Released and Ready for Struts!

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

On 2/7/06, Raghu Kanchustambham <kr...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I can start off yet another holy war on merits of "special frameworks"
> for special purposes vs. a utopian one framework for all purposes! But
> instead let me just ask a few simple question:
> What does this integration mean to a developer like me?

Here's the bottom line: We could spend the next six years slowing
evolving Struts Action 1.x until it ends up looking like a WebWork
clone, or we could all work together on creating an even better
Action-based framework. Both Struts and WebWorks are already the best
in some way, but as Google says: Never settle for the best.

Of course, a lot of have Struts 1.x application in development or in
maintainance mode. Work on the Struts 1.3.0 release continues. Right
now, we're trying to fix some checkstyle errors and are muddling over
one last patch or two. On the dev@ list, people continue to talk about
a Struts 1.4, and so on. Which is great. To keep a line of development
alive, all we need is volunteers who want it to live.


> I am using struts 1.2.8 and use the struts-layout tags for my UI
> components. I have done some 50% of my project work using this
> combination. And I must say I am quite happy with what these
> layout-tags offer so far.
>
> Now, how do I get webwork into my ecosystem?
> Is it correct that webwork's main strength is its rich UI components?
> Can I make struts-layout (or for that matter any other struts based
> taglibs) to co-exist with webwork ? Will integrating with webwork mean
> that if I replace my current struts version with the integrated new
> version, my earlier taglibs will stop working?

Maybe not. WebWorks is a very flexible platform, and there is room for
creating a 1.x interceptor that mimick the Struts environment so that
Struts specific taglibs could work. We coudl also do things like use
XML transformations to migrate confiuration files. I think Don Brown's
been working on some things along those lines. But I think the
heads-down work on a compatibility layer will happen after we pass the
codebase through the Incubator and can work on it here.

Of course, the web application platform is already open. If you wanted
to use WebWork or Action 2 for some tings in your current application,
you could drop the new JARs into your application and have Action1
handle the .do's and have Action2 handle the .do2's.

For new development, the WebWork UI tags already do many of the things
that packages like Struts Layout do. As for other things, as Struts
Layout people come to use WebWork UI tags, we can continue to extend
the UI tags, so that it better meets all of our needs.



>
> Best Regards,
> Raghu
>
> ps: While its good to encourage mutations and variants to get the
> "fittest" one as victorious.. it has its own demerits. In the
> Microsoft world, good(?),bad,ugly - there is just one choice. On day
> 1, you know "this" is what I need to use in the MS world! But here ..
> you decide only on day 10 of the combination of frameworks you want to
> use. And on day 12, you realize there is an option you havent
> considered!  Just a thought ... observing the direction struts has
> been taking over the last 4 months.. :-)

I've been working in ASP.NET for going on two years now. It's true
that if you're writing simple applications, yes, what they ship in the
box is just fine. Just like what Java ships in the box (JSTL and JSF)
is just fine.

But, developers writing enterprise applications are reaching for all
the same tools we have for J2EE. If you look at the ASP.NET example
frameworks, you can see the evolution away from simplistic, monolithic
applications and toward rich, layered applications. One example uses
this data access library, the next uses another. Same old, same old.

I think the difference is that ASP.NET teams tend to use extra
lbraries and packages in stealth mode, where J2EE teams wear their
extensions on their sleeves. (And, at conventions, on our T shirts!)

Though, I would agree that it's time that ASP.NET and Mono developers
had even more choice that we do today. Action 2 for C# and FastCGI
anyone?

-- HTH, Ted.
** http://www.husted.com/ted/blog/

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Re: [ANN] WebWork 2.2.1: Released and Ready for Struts!

[Raghu Kanchustambham <kr...@gmail.com>]

Hi Ted,
While ideally an announcement like this should bring across "joy",
ironically enough it brings some "concerns" to developers like me!

I am uninitiated in WebWork yet. I have just learnt a bit of struts
some 4 months ago. Just when I thought I learnt a little the "floor
(read framework)" moves!

I can start off yet another holy war on merits of "special frameworks"
for special purposes vs. a utopian one framework for all purposes! But
instead let me just ask a few simple question:
What does this integration mean to a developer like me?

I am using struts 1.2.8 and use the struts-layout tags for my UI
components. I have done some 50% of my project work using this
combination. And I must say I am quite happy with what these
layout-tags offer so far.

Now, how do I get webwork into my ecosystem?
Is it correct that webwork's main strength is its rich UI components?
Can I make struts-layout (or for that matter any other struts based
taglibs) to co-exist with webwork ? Will integrating with webwork mean
that if I replace my current struts version with the integrated new
version, my earlier taglibs will stop working?

Best Regards,
Raghu

ps: While its good to encourage mutations and variants to get the
"fittest" one as victorious.. it has its own demerits. In the
Microsoft world, good(?),bad,ugly - there is just one choice. On day
1, you know "this" is what I need to use in the MS world! But here ..
you decide only on day 10 of the combination of frameworks you want to
use. And on day 12, you realize there is an option you havent
considered!  Just a thought ... observing the direction struts has
been taking over the last 4 months.. :-)



On 2/7/06, Ted Husted <te...@gmail.com> wrote:
> See
> * http://blogs.opensymphony.com/webwork/2006/02/webwork_221_released.html
>
> A companion release of XWork 1.1 is also available
> * http://forums.opensymphony.com/thread.jspa?threadID=16919&tstart=0
>
> -Ted.
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: user-unsubscribe@struts.apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: user-help@struts.apache.org
>
>

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