Java Server Faces and Developer Life Comments

[Elderclei R Reami <re...@vertisnet.com.br>]

Hi,

I've just finished my first Struts project, and it's been a great experience on how to do and not to do things. This 
list has been of great help, as well.

Anyway, I have some comments to make. Please, don't flame me, because it's just a view someone that needs 
to be productive.

I've developed a project some time ago using .Net framework and Visual Studio. Wonderful experience, very very 
much productive. Creation of a web interface is just a matter of point and click. First impression: "that's what I 
need for mass production, short 'sell, implement, bill' cycles". Graphical components do keep state during calls, 
integration is event-oriented, which makes it easy like Visual Basic or Delphi traditional dev. Really easy to learn 
and use.

About Struts: hard to use, lack of good development tools, but years light ahead of pure JSP development. Struts 
has all the chances of being the way to go. It just needs to be made easier to use, what means: GUI 
development. I've seen some options: "Eclipse+EasyStruts", StrutsBuilder, StrutsConsole - great tools, but none 
of them really make GUI+Struts integration easy, they are more like wizards, and need a lot of work yet.

Even though, I'm passionate about Java, I need to recognize: M$ really makes UI development a lot easier than 
Sun/Java/Open Source Community. If you ever developed a VB app and a Swing-based Java app, knows what I 
mean. The point is: M$ approach is make it easy, our approach is make it generic, and conceptually beautiful. M$ 
approach is "sell it, do it fast with small costs, have more profit".

I haven't read the entire JSF spec, but I've seen the tutorial, and as far as I understand it, JSF does not make 
programming UI interface much easier than Struts.

Any comments? The matter is: I have a family, and want to get home earlier, not 4:00AM. A lot of philosophy and 
online psychoterapy for FRIDAY, but... :)

Cheers,
Elderclei R Reami
Vertis Tecnologia
+55 11 3887-0835
www.vertisnet.com.br


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Re: Java Server Faces and Developer Life Comments

[David Geary <sa...@earthlink.net>]

Elderclei R Reami wrote:

>Hi,
>
>Even though, I'm passionate about Java, I need to recognize: M$ really makes UI development a lot easier than Sun/Java/Open Source Community. If you ever developed a VB app and a Swing-based Java app, knows what I mean.
>
FWIW, I agree that .NET is a great deal easier to use than any open 
source J2EE combo pack currently available. Last fall, I was invited to 
a 3-day, all expenses paid workshop that introduced .NET to Java 
authors, (since when would Sun do anything like that for MS authors?) 
and I was blown away by the simplicity and elegance of .NET.

Also, I noticed that Scott McNealy himself made a comment in a recent 
interview to the effect that "whoever advertises the most wins". I'm an 
avid reader of the New York Times and I've noticed numerous full-page 
.NET advertisements in that newspaper over the past few months and zero 
adds for Java or J2EE. One degree of freedom. Indeed.

Finally, as a Java author, I've watched in abject horror as Java book 
sales have plummeted over the past year and .NET books have gradually 
gained ground. Watch out, J2EE, the .NET juggernaut is at your back and 
coming up fast.

>I haven't read the entire JSF spec, but I've seen the tutorial, and as far as I understand it, JSF does not make programming UI interface much easier than Struts.
>
Actually, it's much worse than that. After reading through the JSF 
tutorial, JSF makes developing UIs *more difficult* than Struts. As it's 
currently spec'd, JSF can't hold a candle to Struts, even though it's 
obviously a blatant,  inelegant Struts imitation. Want to use form beans 
with JSF? You've got to create them yourself with <jsp:useBean>. Want 
validation with JSF? Get ready to write some Java code and plug it into 
the framework. All that for what -- 2 years of development (not to 
mention a year late)?

I just sent feedback to the JSF expert group stating my concerns with 
JSF and I suggest that others on this mailing list read the tutorial and 
spec and do the same.

In the spirit of the Friday biere messages: c'est dommage!


david

>
>
>Any comments? The matter is: I have a family, and want to get home earlier, not 4:00AM. A lot of philosophy and 
>online psychoterapy for FRIDAY, but... :)
>
>Cheers,
>Elderclei R Reami
>Vertis Tecnologia
>+55 11 3887-0835
>www.vertisnet.com.br
>
>
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>To unsubscribe, e-mail:   <ma...@jakarta.apache.org>
>For additional commands, e-mail: <ma...@jakarta.apache.org>
>
>



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RE: Java Server Faces and Developer Life Comments

["Robert J. Sanford, Jr." <rs...@trefs.com>]

In regards to your comments that Microsoft makes your life easier I have to
generally agree. They learned a lot from the PowerBuilder and Borland people
for their Visual C++ and Visual Basic applications. And they have continued
to evolve that into more than just writing standalone apps - Microsoft ties
application development together so that having their stuff work with their
stuff is very easy.

In my mind the issue is one of incentive - Microsoft has a very large
incentive to make their stuff work very well with their stuff because sales
of one bit of their stuff leads to sales of other bits of their stuff. Most
of the work in the OpenSource world is directed at "scratching an itch"
which is generally not an itch of integration.

In order to win over the hearts and minds of Microsoft's end users the
OpenSource community will have to develop an office suite that is just as
integrated as Office. It doesn't matter if it is just as good, it has to
behave the same way. You have to be able to drag-and-drop a spreadsheet into
a memo to display the quarterly results in a pie chart and have it
automatically emailed to a distribution list every month with the pie chart
automatically updated every month based on the contents of the sales
database. And, it has to be readable without extra effort by everyone that
did NOT convert away from MS Office. I think that I see progress is being
made on this front, especially with OpenOffice, and I am grateful.

In order to win over the hearts and minds of Microsoft's developers the
OpenSource community will have to develop an IDE that will integrate
component development with desktop application development and web-based
application development using some fancy drag-and-drop GUI. What I see here
is a decent fragmentation of the market because every developer has their
own idea of what is good and is willing to go off and write their own. That
is both the strength and the weakness of the OpenSource development process.
Microsoft wins developers because they have one IDE that can do _everything_
you need to do to develop an app on any Microsoft platform. That isn't here
yet for OpenSource.

Personally, I've moved over to Java and the use of OpenSource tools because
of the options they provide to me. But I know waaay too many developers who
won't move over because there is no single tool to choose that they can get
all of their work done with.

rjsjr

> Hi,
>
> I've just finished my first Struts project, and
> it's been a great experience on how to do and
> not to do things. This list has been of great
> help, as well.
>
> Anyway, I have some comments to make. Please,
> don't flame me, because it's just a view
> someone that needs to be productive.
>
> I've developed a project some time ago using
> .Net framework and Visual Studio. Wonderful
> experience, very very much productive. Creation
> of a web interface is just a matter of point and
> click. First impression: "that's what I need for
> mass production, short 'sell, implement, bill'
> cycles". Graphical components do keep state
> during calls, integration is event-oriented,
> which makes it easy like Visual Basic or Delphi
> traditional dev. Really easy to learn and use.
>
> About Struts: hard to use, lack of good
> development tools, but years light ahead of pure
> JSP development. Struts has all the chances of
> being the way to go. It just needs to be made
> easier to use, what means: GUI development. I've
> seen some options: "Eclipse+EasyStruts",
> StrutsBuilder, StrutsConsole - great tools, but
> none of them really make GUI+Struts integration
> easy, they are more like wizards, and need a lot
> of work yet.
>
> Even though, I'm passionate about Java, I need to
> recognize: M$ really makes UI development a lot
> easier than Sun/Java/Open Source Community. If
> you ever developed a VB app and a Swing-based Java
> app, knows what I mean. The point is: M$ approach
> is make it easy, our approach is make it generic,
> and conceptually beautiful. M$ approach is "sell
> it, do it fast with small costs, have more profit".
>
> I haven't read the entire JSF spec, but I've seen
> the tutorial, and as far as I understand it, JSF
> does not make programming UI interface much easier
> than Struts.
>
> Any comments? The matter is: I have a family, and
> want to get home earlier, not 4:00AM. A lot of
> philosophy and online psychoterapy for FRIDAY,
> but... :)
>
> Cheers,
> Elderclei R Reami
> Vertis Tecnologia
> +55 11 3887-0835
> www.vertisnet.com.br
>
>
> --
> To unsubscribe, e-mail:
<ma...@jakarta.apache.org>
For additional commands, e-mail:
<ma...@jakarta.apache.org>



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