RE: FormBeans: A question of Style
On Thu, 2004-02-26 at 23:01, Pradeep, PK wrote: I think whatever you do you can't make JSP and Action Class independent. Where are you populating ActionForm Object from the results from service layer? In Action class only right? Which you know very well for which JSP page it will be applicable. True, but having one well-defined interface between the two (an ActionForm) is preferable to having a handful of poorly-defined interfaces between them (an ActionForm + stuffing a bunch of stuff into the request). Also is it easy to populate all what you need in ActionForm? How one can populate resultset in action form which will automatically get populated in html table.. Yes, call myActionForm.setResults(results) instead of request.setAttribute(results, results). This may seem like a minor point (and it is admittedly a simple example), but maintaining complex pages with a lot of structured data behind them gets difficult when you have to pull a bunch of stuff out of the request with no structure defined between the items you are pulling. Using the ActionForm as the root of your data structure is a simple rule to follow that 'scales up' (with data structure complexity) much better than request-stuffing. -Max - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: FormBeans: A question of Style
This is just wrong. This is done everyday. They are not in the least dependent. At 11:01 PM 2/26/2004, you wrote: I think whatever you do you can't make JSP and Action Class independent. Where are you populating ActionForm Object from the results from service layer? In Action class only right? Which you know very well for which JSP page it will be applicable. Also is it easy to populate all what you need in ActionForm? How one can populate resultset in action form which will automatically get populated in html table.. -Original Message- From: Max Cooper [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, February 27, 2004 11:41 AM To: Struts Users Mailing List Subject: Re: FormBeans: A question of Style I consider the ActionForms to be part of the view primarily. They should both collect submitted data and provide the JSP (or other view components) with most or all the data they need to render the page (camp 2). I say 'most' only because sometimes custom tags can be useful for getting data for list boxes, etc. All the data that the Action collects, however, should be carried to the JSP in the ActionForm. The alternatives for carrying data from Actions to JSPs for the camp 1 gang are not attractive, in my opinion. Having an Action put a bunch of stuff into the request or session scope creates a lot of coupling between the Action and JSP. The Action must know where to put it and the JSP must know where to find it with that scenario. I prefer to keep the Actions and JSPs loosely coupled by having them both depend on the ActionForm, rather than depending on each other. The Action populates the ActionForm, and the JSP renders it. For complex pages, the ActionForm can be the root of an object graph that contains all the data you need to render the page. Stashing additional info all over the session and request is sloppy by comparison, in my opinion. I think the ActionForm is the root of all view data approach promotes more concentrated thought about the structure of the data, which is a good thing. It provides a more concrete interface between the controller (Action) and view (JSP) components. Maintaining JSPs that get their data from one place is much easier than maintaining JSPs that have to collect, organize, and display data from multiple sources. JSPs that pull data from the ActionForm, stuff stashed in the session, and/or stuff stashed in the request are harder to maintain. Where do I find it? How does it all relate? Yuk! -Max On Thu, 2004-02-26 at 17:57, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: We have 2 camps of thought on the subject of the appropriate use of Struts form beans. Here are the thoughts: Camp 1: Form beans are controller components and should be used only to transport user input data between JSP forms (or across JSP forms) and Action classes. Camp 2: Form beans should be use for what Camp 1 thinks, plus they should also contain all the data a JSP uses to render a page (i.e. All the model data is inserted into the form bean as well as the form data.) Any thoughts? Scott - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: FormBeans: A question of Style
Agreed. Consider these scenarios: A single form used with multiple actions (think view/edit/new) A tile that conforms to some interface implemented by multiple forms, that is used on different pages An action that manipulates data and forwards to multiple views (WML vs XML vs HTML, or maybe Table vs Graph) Independence is very important for reusability and maintainability. -Original Message- From: Michael McGrady [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, February 27, 2004 4:53 PM To: Struts Users Mailing List Subject: RE: FormBeans: A question of Style This is just wrong. This is done everyday. They are not in the least dependent. At 11:01 PM 2/26/2004, you wrote: I think whatever you do you can't make JSP and Action Class independent. Where are you populating ActionForm Object from the results from service layer? In Action class only right? Which you know very well for which JSP page it will be applicable. Also is it easy to populate all what you need in ActionForm? How one can populate resultset in action form which will automatically get populated in html table.. -Original Message- From: Max Cooper [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, February 27, 2004 11:41 AM To: Struts Users Mailing List Subject: Re: FormBeans: A question of Style I consider the ActionForms to be part of the view primarily. They should both collect submitted data and provide the JSP (or other view components) with most or all the data they need to render the page (camp 2). I say 'most' only because sometimes custom tags can be useful for getting data for list boxes, etc. All the data that the Action collects, however, should be carried to the JSP in the ActionForm. The alternatives for carrying data from Actions to JSPs for the camp 1 gang are not attractive, in my opinion. Having an Action put a bunch of stuff into the request or session scope creates a lot of coupling between the Action and JSP. The Action must know where to put it and the JSP must know where to find it with that scenario. I prefer to keep the Actions and JSPs loosely coupled by having them both depend on the ActionForm, rather than depending on each other. The Action populates the ActionForm, and the JSP renders it. For complex pages, the ActionForm can be the root of an object graph that contains all the data you need to render the page. Stashing additional info all over the session and request is sloppy by comparison, in my opinion. I think the ActionForm is the root of all view data approach promotes more concentrated thought about the structure of the data, which is a good thing. It provides a more concrete interface between the controller (Action) and view (JSP) components. Maintaining JSPs that get their data from one place is much easier than maintaining JSPs that have to collect, organize, and display data from multiple sources. JSPs that pull data from the ActionForm, stuff stashed in the session, and/or stuff stashed in the request are harder to maintain. Where do I find it? How does it all relate? Yuk! -Max On Thu, 2004-02-26 at 17:57, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: We have 2 camps of thought on the subject of the appropriate use of Struts form beans. Here are the thoughts: Camp 1: Form beans are controller components and should be used only to transport user input data between JSP forms (or across JSP forms) and Action classes. Camp 2: Form beans should be use for what Camp 1 thinks, plus they should also contain all the data a JSP uses to render a page (i.e. All the model data is inserted into the form bean as well as the form data.) Any thoughts? Scott - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: FormBeans: A question of Style
I consider the ActionForms to be part of the view primarily. They should both collect submitted data and provide the JSP (or other view components) with most or all the data they need to render the page (camp 2). I say 'most' only because sometimes custom tags can be useful for getting data for list boxes, etc. All the data that the Action collects, however, should be carried to the JSP in the ActionForm. The alternatives for carrying data from Actions to JSPs for the camp 1 gang are not attractive, in my opinion. Having an Action put a bunch of stuff into the request or session scope creates a lot of coupling between the Action and JSP. The Action must know where to put it and the JSP must know where to find it with that scenario. I prefer to keep the Actions and JSPs loosely coupled by having them both depend on the ActionForm, rather than depending on each other. The Action populates the ActionForm, and the JSP renders it. For complex pages, the ActionForm can be the root of an object graph that contains all the data you need to render the page. Stashing additional info all over the session and request is sloppy by comparison, in my opinion. I think the ActionForm is the root of all view data approach promotes more concentrated thought about the structure of the data, which is a good thing. It provides a more concrete interface between the controller (Action) and view (JSP) components. Maintaining JSPs that get their data from one place is much easier than maintaining JSPs that have to collect, organize, and display data from multiple sources. JSPs that pull data from the ActionForm, stuff stashed in the session, and/or stuff stashed in the request are harder to maintain. Where do I find it? How does it all relate? Yuk! -Max On Thu, 2004-02-26 at 17:57, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: We have 2 camps of thought on the subject of the appropriate use of Struts form beans. Here are the thoughts: Camp 1: Form beans are controller components and should be used only to transport user input data between JSP forms (or across JSP forms) and Action classes. Camp 2: Form beans should be use for what Camp 1 thinks, plus they should also contain all the data a JSP uses to render a page (i.e. All the model data is inserted into the form bean as well as the form data.) Any thoughts? Scott - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: FormBeans: A question of Style
Dam - I was in Camp 3: Form beans are View components...but looking in the user guide... Note: While ActionForm beans often have properties that correspond to properties in your Model beans, the form beans themselves should be considered a Controller component. As such, they are able to transfer data between the Model and View layers. Niall - Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, February 27, 2004 1:57 AM Subject: FormBeans: A question of Style We have 2 camps of thought on the subject of the appropriate use of Struts form beans. Here are the thoughts: Camp 1: Form beans are controller components and should be used only to transport user input data between JSP forms (or across JSP forms) and Action classes. Camp 2: Form beans should be use for what Camp 1 thinks, plus they should also contain all the data a JSP uses to render a page (i.e. All the model data is inserted into the form bean as well as the form data.) Any thoughts? Scott - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: FormBeans: A question of Style
Im with camp 3 then I guess. Way I see it , forms are view components, there to provide an object for both action and JSP to be able to access the state of the screen. (Fields values and other bits of information that are needed to recreate the html, and a place to hold the state of the view (ie: submitted field values) on the server side for the controller (action) to read from) Maybe we should raise an issue in bugzilla against the userguide? Forms have no business transfering stuff from view to model. The model should never have to see an actionForm and should be blissfuly unaware of their very existence. Thats the job of an action to do, taking data from the form, and providing it to the model and vice versa (preferably with some kind of helper classes and perhaps also non-form DTOs involved) -Original Message- From: Niall Pemberton [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, 27 February 2004 12:12 To: Struts Users Mailing List Subject: Re: FormBeans: A question of Style Dam - I was in Camp 3: Form beans are View components...but looking in the user guide... Note: While ActionForm beans often have properties that correspond to properties in your Model beans, the form beans themselves should be considered a Controller component. As such, they are able to transfer data between the Model and View layers. Niall - Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, February 27, 2004 1:57 AM Subject: FormBeans: A question of Style We have 2 camps of thought on the subject of the appropriate use of Struts form beans. Here are the thoughts: Camp 1: Form beans are controller components and should be used only to transport user input data between JSP forms (or across JSP forms) and Action classes. Camp 2: Form beans should be use for what Camp 1 thinks, plus they should also contain all the data a JSP uses to render a page (i.e. All the model data is inserted into the form bean as well as the form data.) Any thoughts? Scott - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: FormBeans: A question of Style
I agree Camp 3. All the text I have read on MVC advise that the business logic should be performed by calling service modules out of the action class. On Fri, 27 Feb 2004, Andrew Hill wrote: Im with camp 3 then I guess. Way I see it , forms are view components, there to provide an object for both action and JSP to be able to access the state of the screen. (Fields values and other bits of information that are needed to recreate the html, and a place to hold the state of the view (ie: submitted field values) on the server side for the controller (action) to read from) Maybe we should raise an issue in bugzilla against the userguide? Forms have no business transfering stuff from view to model. The model should never have to see an actionForm and should be blissfuly unaware of their very existence. Thats the job of an action to do, taking data from the form, and providing it to the model and vice versa (preferably with some kind of helper classes and perhaps also non-form DTOs involved) -Original Message- From: Niall Pemberton [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, 27 February 2004 12:12 To: Struts Users Mailing List Subject: Re: FormBeans: A question of Style Dam - I was in Camp 3: Form beans are View components...but looking in the user guide... Note: While ActionForm beans often have properties that correspond to properties in your Model beans, the form beans themselves should be considered a Controller component. As such, they are able to transfer data between the Model and View layers. Niall - Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, February 27, 2004 1:57 AM Subject: FormBeans: A question of Style We have 2 camps of thought on the subject of the appropriate use of Struts form beans. Here are the thoughts: Camp 1: Form beans are controller components and should be used only to transport user input data between JSP forms (or across JSP forms) and Action classes. Camp 2: Form beans should be use for what Camp 1 thinks, plus they should also contain all the data a JSP uses to render a page (i.e. All the model data is inserted into the form bean as well as the form data.) Any thoughts? Scott - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: FormBeans: A question of Style
I think whatever you do you can't make JSP and Action Class independent. Where are you populating ActionForm Object from the results from service layer? In Action class only right? Which you know very well for which JSP page it will be applicable. Also is it easy to populate all what you need in ActionForm? How one can populate resultset in action form which will automatically get populated in html table.. -Original Message- From: Max Cooper [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, February 27, 2004 11:41 AM To: Struts Users Mailing List Subject: Re: FormBeans: A question of Style I consider the ActionForms to be part of the view primarily. They should both collect submitted data and provide the JSP (or other view components) with most or all the data they need to render the page (camp 2). I say 'most' only because sometimes custom tags can be useful for getting data for list boxes, etc. All the data that the Action collects, however, should be carried to the JSP in the ActionForm. The alternatives for carrying data from Actions to JSPs for the camp 1 gang are not attractive, in my opinion. Having an Action put a bunch of stuff into the request or session scope creates a lot of coupling between the Action and JSP. The Action must know where to put it and the JSP must know where to find it with that scenario. I prefer to keep the Actions and JSPs loosely coupled by having them both depend on the ActionForm, rather than depending on each other. The Action populates the ActionForm, and the JSP renders it. For complex pages, the ActionForm can be the root of an object graph that contains all the data you need to render the page. Stashing additional info all over the session and request is sloppy by comparison, in my opinion. I think the ActionForm is the root of all view data approach promotes more concentrated thought about the structure of the data, which is a good thing. It provides a more concrete interface between the controller (Action) and view (JSP) components. Maintaining JSPs that get their data from one place is much easier than maintaining JSPs that have to collect, organize, and display data from multiple sources. JSPs that pull data from the ActionForm, stuff stashed in the session, and/or stuff stashed in the request are harder to maintain. Where do I find it? How does it all relate? Yuk! -Max On Thu, 2004-02-26 at 17:57, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: We have 2 camps of thought on the subject of the appropriate use of Struts form beans. Here are the thoughts: Camp 1: Form beans are controller components and should be used only to transport user input data between JSP forms (or across JSP forms) and Action classes. Camp 2: Form beans should be use for what Camp 1 thinks, plus they should also contain all the data a JSP uses to render a page (i.e. All the model data is inserted into the form bean as well as the form data.) Any thoughts? Scott - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: FormBeans: A question of Style
snip I think whatever you do you can't make JSP and Action Class independent. Where are you populating ActionForm Object from the results from service layer? In Action class only right? Which you know very well for which JSP page it will be applicable. /snip True snip How one can populate resultset in action form which will automatically get populated in html table.. /snip Shouldnt be passing a resultset to the JSP. Better to extract the info you need from it so you can free up the connection before forwarding to the JSP. Take a look at: http://jakarta.apache.org/commons/beanutils/api/ -Original Message- From: Pradeep, PK [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, 27 February 2004 15:02 To: Struts Users Mailing List Subject: RE: FormBeans: A question of Style I think whatever you do you can't make JSP and Action Class independent. Where are you populating ActionForm Object from the results from service layer? In Action class only right? Which you know very well for which JSP page it will be applicable. Also is it easy to populate all what you need in ActionForm? How one can populate resultset in action form which will automatically get populated in html table.. -Original Message- From: Max Cooper [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, February 27, 2004 11:41 AM To: Struts Users Mailing List Subject: Re: FormBeans: A question of Style I consider the ActionForms to be part of the view primarily. They should both collect submitted data and provide the JSP (or other view components) with most or all the data they need to render the page (camp 2). I say 'most' only because sometimes custom tags can be useful for getting data for list boxes, etc. All the data that the Action collects, however, should be carried to the JSP in the ActionForm. The alternatives for carrying data from Actions to JSPs for the camp 1 gang are not attractive, in my opinion. Having an Action put a bunch of stuff into the request or session scope creates a lot of coupling between the Action and JSP. The Action must know where to put it and the JSP must know where to find it with that scenario. I prefer to keep the Actions and JSPs loosely coupled by having them both depend on the ActionForm, rather than depending on each other. The Action populates the ActionForm, and the JSP renders it. For complex pages, the ActionForm can be the root of an object graph that contains all the data you need to render the page. Stashing additional info all over the session and request is sloppy by comparison, in my opinion. I think the ActionForm is the root of all view data approach promotes more concentrated thought about the structure of the data, which is a good thing. It provides a more concrete interface between the controller (Action) and view (JSP) components. Maintaining JSPs that get their data from one place is much easier than maintaining JSPs that have to collect, organize, and display data from multiple sources. JSPs that pull data from the ActionForm, stuff stashed in the session, and/or stuff stashed in the request are harder to maintain. Where do I find it? How does it all relate? Yuk! -Max On Thu, 2004-02-26 at 17:57, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: We have 2 camps of thought on the subject of the appropriate use of Struts form beans. Here are the thoughts: Camp 1: Form beans are controller components and should be used only to transport user input data between JSP forms (or across JSP forms) and Action classes. Camp 2: Form beans should be use for what Camp 1 thinks, plus they should also contain all the data a JSP uses to render a page (i.e. All the model data is inserted into the form bean as well as the form data.) Any thoughts? Scott - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
