The more I study Rest [1] and now having used it in a production application, the more I'm convinced Struts 2 needs to be the premier way to write Restful web applications. The HTTP-based Rest theory is well-suited to the action-based Model 2 design as makes it easy to write naturally Restful applications. While there are several Java web service frameworks that support Rest (notably Apache CXF), there are few Java web frameworks that help you write human and machine-facing web applications using Rest principles.
What is missing in Struts 2 is that extra bit a framework can do to take away the broilerplate code and let you focus on your application. Therefore, I'd like to propose we add the Rest Plugin, now residing in the Struts sandbox, to the list of bundled Struts 2 plugins. With the plugin, I've taken what I've learned having put a Restful Struts 2-based application into production and tried to get the plugin to do all the tedious, repetitive work, all the while following the established patterns implemented by Ruby on Rails. I've written a quick guide to using the plugin in our plugin registry [2] and have included a showcase web application with the plugin code [3]. BTW, I'll be speaking at ApacheCon about writing Rest applications using Struts 2, and it is preparing for that talk that prompted this plugin. I looked at the last Rest application I wrote using Struts 2 and decided that as a framework, Struts could do better. Don [1] http://www.amazon.com/RESTful-Web-Services-Leonard-Richardson/dp/0596529260 [2] http://cwiki.apache.org/S2PLUGINS/rest-plugin.html [3] http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/struts/sandbox/trunk/struts2-rest-plugin//showcase/ --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
