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Posted to user@struts.apache.org by Rick Reumann <ri...@gmail.com> on 2006/01/20 22:36:59 UTC
[OT] Anyone else mess around with Wicket?
Nick's comment on here about a week ago got me to at least look at
Wicket. http://wicket.sourceforge.net/ Has anyone actually used it
for a real-world application? I'd be curious on your thoughts.
So far, with my limited two days of looking over the examples and
example code, I'm not so sure of it's place in the framework world. My
biggest contention is with the claim on the page
http://wicket.sourceforge.net/Introduction.html
"Wicket is all about simplicity. There are no configuration files to
learn in Wicket. Wicket is a simple class library with a consistent
approach to component structure. In Wicket, your web applications will
more closely resemble a Swing application than a JSP application. If
you know Java (and especially if you know Swing), you already know a
lot about Wicket."
What's so much easier about understanding how their Java classes work
as an API vs understanding how XML configuration files work? All they
did was move any xml complexity into understanding how the overall
framework API works (and to compound the matter, there really is very
little documentation).
I'm just not so sure what it buys me over using a component based
framework such as JSF.
The biggest strength I see in the framework is in regard to page markup:
"Wicket, more than any other framework gives you a separation of
concerns. Web designers can work on the HTML with very little
knowledge of the application code (they cannot remove the component
name tags and they cannot arbitrarily change the nesting of
components, but anything else goes). Likewise, coders can work on the
Java components that attach to the HTML without concerning themselves
with what a given page looks like. By not stepping on each other's
toes, everyone can get more work done."
Since I'm the one always having to handle the html in my JSPs anyway,
the above isn't that big of a deal to me.
--
Rick
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Re: [OT] Anyone else mess around with Wicket?
Posted by "Frank W. Zammetti" <fz...@omnytex.com>.
Niall Pemberton wrote:
> Must have missed those comments, anyway not to worry, I take your word for
> it so +1 from me for your ritual flogging :-)
LOL :)
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Re: [OT] Anyone else mess around with Wicket?
Posted by Niall Pemberton <ni...@blueyonder.co.uk>.
Must have missed those comments, anyway not to worry, I take your word for
it so +1 from me for your ritual flogging :-)
Niall
----- Original Message -----
From: "Frank W. Zammetti" <fz...@omnytex.com>
Sent: Saturday, January 21, 2006 9:50 PM
> Yeah, I suspected that was the case (and sent a follow-up to Craig
> off-list saying as much). I have no doubt it's my fault, I'm just not
> sure how yet :) I'll have to look over settings tonight.
>
> With some of my past JSF comments though, I can never be sure :) Of
> course, it that was the case, by now I deserve it!
>
> Frank
>
> Niall Pemberton wrote:
> > I doubt it - for some reason your messages add in your email address in
the
> > reply to as well as the struts user (it did on this message, but I
manually
> > removed it).
> >
> > Niall
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Frank W. Zammetti" <fz...@omnytex.com>
> > Sent: Saturday, January 21, 2006 8:19 PM
> >
> >
> >> Is there a hidden message in the fact that you CC'd me on this Craig?
:)
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Re: [OT] Anyone else mess around with Wicket?
Posted by "Frank W. Zammetti" <fz...@omnytex.com>.
Yeah, I suspected that was the case (and sent a follow-up to Craig
off-list saying as much). I have no doubt it's my fault, I'm just not
sure how yet :) I'll have to look over settings tonight.
With some of my past JSF comments though, I can never be sure :) Of
course, it that was the case, by now I deserve it!
Frank
Niall Pemberton wrote:
> I doubt it - for some reason your messages add in your email address in the
> reply to as well as the struts user (it did on this message, but I manually
> removed it).
>
> Niall
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Frank W. Zammetti" <fz...@omnytex.com>
> Sent: Saturday, January 21, 2006 8:19 PM
>
>
>> Is there a hidden message in the fact that you CC'd me on this Craig? :)
>>
>> Frank
>>
>> Craig McClanahan wrote:
>>> On 1/20/06, Michael Jouravlev <jm...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> If all that JSF rendereres produce are divs and spans with proper ids,
>>>> then dressing up a page would be a weekend fun a-la Zen Garden. Anyone
>>>> from JSF team hears me? ;-))))
>>>
>>> Building such renderers would be trivially easy, and would make a very
> nice
>>> library. Why don't you code up some renderers like this and show the
> JSFers
>>> how to do it, instead of just complaining about this issue? :-). After
>>> all, designing the rendered markup is something you can get right or
> get
>>> wrong with any technology -- it's not at all JSF specific.
>>>
>>> Michael.
>>>
>>>
>>> Craig
>>>
>> --
>> Frank W. Zammetti
>> Founder and Chief Software Architect
>> Omnytex Technologies
>> http://www.omnytex.com
>> AIM: fzammetti
>> Yahoo: fzammetti
>> MSN: fzammetti@hotmail.com
>
>
>
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>
>
>
>
--
Frank W. Zammetti
Founder and Chief Software Architect
Omnytex Technologies
http://www.omnytex.com
AIM: fzammetti
Yahoo: fzammetti
MSN: fzammetti@hotmail.com
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Re: [OT] Anyone else mess around with Wicket?
Posted by Niall Pemberton <ni...@blueyonder.co.uk>.
I doubt it - for some reason your messages add in your email address in the
reply to as well as the struts user (it did on this message, but I manually
removed it).
Niall
----- Original Message -----
From: "Frank W. Zammetti" <fz...@omnytex.com>
Sent: Saturday, January 21, 2006 8:19 PM
> Is there a hidden message in the fact that you CC'd me on this Craig? :)
>
> Frank
>
> Craig McClanahan wrote:
> > On 1/20/06, Michael Jouravlev <jm...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> If all that JSF rendereres produce are divs and spans with proper ids,
> >> then dressing up a page would be a weekend fun a-la Zen Garden. Anyone
> >> from JSF team hears me? ;-))))
> >
> >
> > Building such renderers would be trivially easy, and would make a very
nice
> > library. Why don't you code up some renderers like this and show the
JSFers
> > how to do it, instead of just complaining about this issue? :-). After
> > all, designing the rendered markup is something you can get right or
get
> > wrong with any technology -- it's not at all JSF specific.
> >
> > Michael.
> >
> >
> > Craig
> >
>
> --
> Frank W. Zammetti
> Founder and Chief Software Architect
> Omnytex Technologies
> http://www.omnytex.com
> AIM: fzammetti
> Yahoo: fzammetti
> MSN: fzammetti@hotmail.com
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Re: [OT] Anyone else mess around with Wicket?
Posted by "Frank W. Zammetti" <fz...@omnytex.com>.
Is there a hidden message in the fact that you CC'd me on this Craig? :)
Frank
Craig McClanahan wrote:
> On 1/20/06, Michael Jouravlev <jm...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> If all that JSF rendereres produce are divs and spans with proper ids,
>> then dressing up a page would be a weekend fun a-la Zen Garden. Anyone
>> from JSF team hears me? ;-))))
>
>
> Building such renderers would be trivially easy, and would make a very nice
> library. Why don't you code up some renderers like this and show the JSFers
> how to do it, instead of just complaining about this issue? :-). After
> all, designing the rendered markup is something you can get right or get
> wrong with any technology -- it's not at all JSF specific.
>
> Michael.
>
>
> Craig
>
--
Frank W. Zammetti
Founder and Chief Software Architect
Omnytex Technologies
http://www.omnytex.com
AIM: fzammetti
Yahoo: fzammetti
MSN: fzammetti@hotmail.com
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Re: [OT] Anyone else mess around with Wicket?
Posted by Michael Jouravlev <jm...@gmail.com>.
On 1/21/06, Craig McClanahan <cr...@apache.org> wrote:
> On 1/20/06, Michael Jouravlev <jm...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > If all that JSF rendereres produce are divs and spans with proper ids,
> > then dressing up a page would be a weekend fun a-la Zen Garden. Anyone
> > from JSF team hears me? ;-))))
>
> Building such renderers would be trivially easy, and would make a very nice
> library. Why don't you code up some renderers like this and show the JSFers
> how to do it, instead of just complaining about this issue? :-)
There is a Russian saying, "You suggest it, you will be chosen to
implement it, you will be punished for doing it wrong" ;-)) I do not
actually use JSF right now. I might give it a try, but I am no Dave
Shea ;-)
Michael.
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Re: [OT] Anyone else mess around with Wicket?
Posted by Craig McClanahan <cr...@apache.org>.
On 1/20/06, Michael Jouravlev <jm...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> If all that JSF rendereres produce are divs and spans with proper ids,
> then dressing up a page would be a weekend fun a-la Zen Garden. Anyone
> from JSF team hears me? ;-))))
Building such renderers would be trivially easy, and would make a very nice
library. Why don't you code up some renderers like this and show the JSFers
how to do it, instead of just complaining about this issue? :-). After
all, designing the rendered markup is something you can get right or get
wrong with any technology -- it's not at all JSF specific.
Michael.
Craig
Re: [OT] Anyone else mess around with Wicket?
Posted by "Frank W. Zammetti" <fz...@omnytex.com>.
Nick Heudecker wrote:
> All that said, I'd prefer if you don't use Wicket. I'd like to keep this
> competitive advantage to myself. :)
LOL, I like that answer! :)
--
Frank W. Zammetti
Founder and Chief Software Architect
Omnytex Technologies
http://www.omnytex.com
AIM: fzammetti
Yahoo: fzammetti
MSN: fzammetti@hotmail.com
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Re: [OT] Anyone else mess around with Wicket?
Posted by Nick Heudecker <nh...@gmail.com>.
I figure I'm obligated to respond, since my comments were cited in the
original email. :)
I have to disagree with complaints about Wicket's complexity, but only
because I've been using it to build a product for the last few months.
Without heavy usage, I don't think I'd have the same positive opinion. Some
things, like displaying conditional content, seemed cumbersome initially,
but now I appreciate having the logic in one place, rather than split
between the Action and the JSP.
Lack of markup in the templates and the concept of a page map have really
simplified my development and made features much easier to add, especially
when compared to Struts. Not having to update struts-config.xml and
validation.xml is also quite nice.
I won't use JSF. Tapestry is okay, but still requires some form of
configuration either through XML or annotations. Additionally, there's
still some logic in the markup. I don't have to do that with Wicket.
All that said, I'd prefer if you don't use Wicket. I'd like to keep this
competitive advantage to myself. :)
Re: [OT] Anyone else mess around with Wicket?
Posted by Michael Jouravlev <jm...@gmail.com>.
On 1/20/06, Frank W. Zammetti <fz...@omnytex.com> wrote:
> Rick Reumann wrote:
> > "Wicket is all about simplicity. There are no configuration files to
> > learn in Wicket. Wicket is a simple class library with a consistent
> > approach to component structure. In Wicket, your web applications will
> > more closely resemble a Swing application than a JSP application. If
> > you know Java (and especially if you know Swing), you already know a
> > lot about Wicket."
>
> I completely agree... I've seen some butt-ugly Swing code in my time,
> and probably have written some of it if I'm being honest, and one thing
> I would *not* call it is simpler than a reasonably-designed and
> implemented config-based framework.
>
> There are some interesting ideas in Wicket, no question, but it's not
> any simpler in my estimation, it's just moving complexity elsewhere
> (which is the complaint I often hear, and myself have, about JSF by the
> way).
>
> > "Wicket, more than any other framework gives you a separation of
> > concerns. Web designers can work on the HTML with very little
> > knowledge of the application code (they cannot remove the component
> > name tags and they cannot arbitrarily change the nesting of
> > components, but anything else goes). Likewise, coders can work on the
> > Java components that attach to the HTML without concerning themselves
> > with what a given page looks like. By not stepping on each other's
> > toes, everyone can get more work done."
>
> *THIS* was my biggest problem... I don't see how it can remotely even be
> described as "separation of concerns"... to me, even the best Swing code
> is a jumbled mess of presentation and application code. Oh sure, you
> can do some things to make it less so, but your still describing
> presentation in terms of code.
All above is exactly my feel about Wicket. I was very enthusiastic
about it half a year ago, but frankly speaking, I do not like
Swing-type convoluted coding. Maybe I just don't know a proper
technique to write Swing code, but it always ends up with a bunch of
global variables used throughout several classes and event handlers.
> That means my Java developers have to be
> my page designers, and vice-versa. How exactly are my concerns
> separated again?
You can preview HTML template it in a browser. I guess you can do the
same with JSF and Netbeans, do you? And with JSP as well, even without
web.xml file. So, the preview thing does not seem like a showstopper
for me.
> > Since I'm the one always having to handle the html in my JSPs anyway,
> > the above isn't that big of a deal to me.
>
> And you just hit the nail on the head... if your in a shop where the
> Java coders and the page designers are one in the same, as frankly many
> of us are, then much of this doesn't matter (both pro and con). You can
> pick a framework for whatever reasons you want and have at it and
> probably be successful.
In many (most?) cases page "designers" know shit about programming,
they just draw fancy images in Photoshop and slice-and-dice them into
a table. If a web "designer" knows what CSS is and how to create fluid
and scalable page, he is already a pro ;-) I mean, I personally cannot
draw, but I can connect dots, I mean, lines here and there. I
understand that XHTML/CSS/Javascript is a huge area to learn, but do
web "designers" know all this stuff? Well, maybe there should be a GUI
developer position, who can take slices and build nice web page and
not be shy to run it in Tomcat.
Wicket and Tapestry are not *the* solution for the gap between web
"designers" and server-side developers.
> It's when you get into a shop where there are two separate groups doing
> these things that the decision becomes a lot harder... well, to me, it
> gets *easier* to decide against Wicket and similar frameworks. In fact,
> as much as it pains me to say it (because I don't particularly care for
> it), something like JSF begins to have more benefit in such an environment.
+1 We are building apps, not pieces of art. Take panel, drop. Take
button, drop. Take combobox, drop. Change properties. Wire up events.
Voila. Design? Can be applied later with CSS. ASP.NET 1.0 produced
shitty non-XHTML markup, hopefully this version is better. Hopefully
JSF is better too.
If all that JSF rendereres produce are divs and spans with proper ids,
then dressing up a page would be a weekend fun a-la Zen Garden. Anyone
from JSF team hears me? ;-))))
Michael.
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Re: [OT] Anyone else mess around with Wicket?
Posted by "Frank W. Zammetti" <fz...@omnytex.com>.
Rick Reumann wrote:
> Nick's comment on here about a week ago got me to at least look at
> Wicket. http://wicket.sourceforge.net/ Has anyone actually used it
> for a real-world application? I'd be curious on your thoughts.
I looked at Wicket quite a bit too, having heard a lot of good things
about it...
> So far, with my limited two days of looking over the examples and
> example code, I'm not so sure of it's place in the framework world. My
> biggest contention is with the claim on the page
> http://wicket.sourceforge.net/Introduction.html
>
> "Wicket is all about simplicity. There are no configuration files to
> learn in Wicket. Wicket is a simple class library with a consistent
> approach to component structure. In Wicket, your web applications will
> more closely resemble a Swing application than a JSP application. If
> you know Java (and especially if you know Swing), you already know a
> lot about Wicket."
I completely agree... I've seen some butt-ugly Swing code in my time,
and probably have written some of it if I'm being honest, and one thing
I would *not* call it is simpler than a reasonably-designed and
implemented config-based framework.
There are some interesting ideas in Wicket, no question, but it's not
any simpler in my estimation, it's just moving complexity elsewhere
(which is the complaint I often hear, and myself have, about JSF by the
way).
> "Wicket, more than any other framework gives you a separation of
> concerns. Web designers can work on the HTML with very little
> knowledge of the application code (they cannot remove the component
> name tags and they cannot arbitrarily change the nesting of
> components, but anything else goes). Likewise, coders can work on the
> Java components that attach to the HTML without concerning themselves
> with what a given page looks like. By not stepping on each other's
> toes, everyone can get more work done."
*THIS* was my biggest problem... I don't see how it can remotely even be
described as "separation of concerns"... to me, even the best Swing code
is a jumbled mess of presentation and application code. Oh sure, you
can do some things to make it less so, but your still describing
presentation in terms of code. That means my Java developers have to be
my page designers, and vice-versa. How exactly are my concerns
separated again?
> Since I'm the one always having to handle the html in my JSPs anyway,
> the above isn't that big of a deal to me.
And you just hit the nail on the head... if your in a shop where the
Java coders and the page designers are one in the same, as frankly many
of us are, then much of this doesn't matter (both pro and con). You can
pick a framework for whatever reasons you want and have at it and
probably be successful.
It's when you get into a shop where there are two separate groups doing
these things that the decision becomes a lot harder... well, to me, it
gets *easier* to decide against Wicket and similar frameworks. In fact,
as much as it pains me to say it (because I don't particularly care for
it), something like JSF begins to have more benefit in such an environment.
> --
> Rick
Frank
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Re: [OT] Anyone else mess around with Wicket?
Posted by Michael Jouravlev <jm...@gmail.com>.
On 1/20/06, Jason King <jh...@airmail.net> wrote:
> I looked at it also. The idea seems good, but I didn't see any fancy UI
> like grids or treeviews. As somebody at a bigger shop the separation of
> concerns appeals to me, but if I have to create all the interesting
> components myself I think I'll do JSF instead.
Not sure about treeview, but Wicket has pretty nice grid.
Michael.
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Re: [OT] Anyone else mess around with Wicket?
Posted by Jason King <jh...@airmail.net>.
I looked at it also. The idea seems good, but I didn't see any fancy UI
like grids or treeviews. As somebody at a bigger shop the separation of
concerns appeals to me, but if I have to create all the interesting
components myself I think I'll do JSF instead.
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