Re: Is Struts Dying?
On 8/25/05, Paul Benedict <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > The subject line asks it all. Is it true? > Like a lot of journalism nowdays :-(, the subject line (and the thinking behind it) presumes that the real world is binary in its response to changing conditions. That is decidedly not the case -- indeed, I would likely contend that the real world response isn't even responsive to *analog* (versus digital) design analysis -- it's much more fractal than that. (Translation, if you want a short answer that lets you skip the rest of this response -- there is no such thing as a single answer to this kind of question, so it's pretty useless to debate what that answer might be.) > I hope we see a version 1.2.8 and a 1.3 soon, but I am > sorry to see all the innovation going into Spring > (YEAH!) and Shale (YAWN!), with no one really wanting > to continue growing the classic framework. Whatever you think of Shale, you're totally naive if you believe nobody cares about Struts Classic -- no matter what the development activity level at any point of time might be. Besides the efforts going into the 1.3 refactoring train, think outside the box for a minute. Even if Struts Classic development stopped *totally*, would that impact the fact that there are *thousands* of existing apps dependent on these APIs. Those apps do not go away simply because some new framework comes along and has cool new ideas. The needs of the developers of those apps need to be paid attention to ... and the Struts community is responding to those needs. > > Is it viable to evolve Struts Classic into Shale, and > mix into the Shale source support for good old Struts? > I say it sounds like a good idea to me but I hope > there are better ideas than mine, or we'd all be in > trouble ;-) > Actually, I'm coming to the conclusion that this is not *necessarily* a good idea. The basic ideas that drove the development of Struts were formed a little over five years ago. (OK, to be precise, I typed the original Struts 0.x code into my laptop over a vacation at the Oregon coast in May 2000, much to the chagrin of my wife, but after 31 years together she's started to get the idea of who I am and what I do :-). The world of web development has changed *dramatically* in that amount of time ... so one common viewpoint is that (negatively expressed) Struts Classic is dead. But another viewpoint should be "shouldn't the Struts community evolve Struts to take advantage of everything the world has learned since then?" If I were a Struts user, I would be *really* unhappy if the Struts developers were not paying attention to what is going on in the world. What happens to Struts itself, however, is only part of a broader picture. The world has definitely come up with some better (and, in some cases *much* better -- think about the fact that this is the very creator of Struts telling you this) ideas. How should the Struts community react? I believe that *all* of the following responses are appropriate: * Continue to maintain and enhance a kind of Struts that is fundamentally backwards compatible, thus protecting the investment people have made in both understanding Struts APIs, and the fact that nobody can afford to convert all their existing apps, all at once, to the "greatest thing since sliced bread" today. Struts 1.3.x is doing this. * Embrace an integration with new technologies as they emerge, without changing the underlying nature of the platform. Struts has demonstrated that it likes this path -- look at what happened when JSTL 1.0 was released. The new capabilities were leveraged, the existing tags were given a new lease on life (struts-el), and the world got better for Struts users. * Recognize that five years, in Internet time, is an infinity -- eventually, some other technology is going to obsolete you. Given that this is *absolutely certain* to occur, does the Struts community choose to provide to their users a path to take advantage of what has now become possible, or do they act like ostriches and assume everyone should extend Action and ActionForm now until the end of time. > With that said, this is my opinion based on > observation of the amazing industry progression in the > MVC area. I hope the Struts committers aren't burnt > out. I love Struts which is why I ask this tough > question. I hope I get some good news and be told I am > wrong :) > As I said at the beginning, the world is not simplistic enough for binary answers like "you are right" or "you are wrong". Yes, Struts Classic is evolving. Yes, there is a way to integrate new mainstream technologies with Struts Classic (the struts-faces integration library). Yes, the Struts community is actively developing (more than one) possible successors to Struts Classic. Given that successors to Struts Classic are *guaranteed* to emerge, would you rather have them come from the Struts community (who might actually care about providing tra
[FIRDAY] Re : Is Struts Dying?
> > The only reason for Struts to improve is keeping Front > controller aka web MVC as a cornerstone pattern. The other reason is, that we all love struts just too much to let it die. Btw, is anyone working on improvements of the struts-taglibs (logic and bean)? Regards Leon - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Is Struts Dying?
On 8/25/05, Paul Benedict <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > The subject line asks it all. Is it true? Once again? Man, you should have used [FRIDAY] prefix ;-) Tomorrow's Friday anyway. The short answer is the question: is servlet API dead? Do people still program to bare servlet API? > I hope we see a version 1.2.8 and a 1.3 soon, but I am > sorry to see all the innovation going into Spring > (YEAH!) and Shale (YAWN!), with no one really wanting > to continue growing the classic framework. There is Struts Ti (a lot of new stuff), my very own Struts Dialogs (just two action classes and a different mindset using existing codebase) http://struts.sourceforge.net/strutsdialogs, and other developments. > Is it viable to evolve Struts Classic into Shale, and > mix into the Shale source support for good old Struts? > I say it sounds like a good idea to me but I hope > there are better ideas than mine, or we'd all be in > trouble ;-) Currently Shale targets JSF as view technology, so unless Shale starts to support JSPs and Struts taglibs, Shale cannot be considered as evolution of Struts. > With that said, this is my opinion based on > observation of the amazing industry progression in the > MVC area. Would not call it amazing, seeing something like this: http://forum.springframework.org/viewtopic.php?t=4200 ;-)) Or are you talking about Microsoft, which adds first-class support for Front Controller pattern into ASP.NET 2.0? > I hope the Struts committers aren't burnt > out. I love Struts which is why I ask this tough > question. I hope I get some good news and be told I am > wrong :) The problem is, if you like Struts the way it is, you will not be happy with any radical changes, see DJ has split to Spring MVC. If you do not like Struts way of doing things and the word "Struts" make you puke, you will more likely jump to JSF/Shale/Tapestry/Wicket/etc right now. Basically, Struts is screwed ;-) I believe that the only way for further Struts Classic development is to use different approaches within current codebase. This is what I did with my Struts Dialogs. Basically, only one new action and a different request lifecycle. Struts is a wrapper over servlet API, kinda like MFC. I prefer it to stay this way, so I could use something relatively small and fast to build a small app (or if I wanted to put a lot of handcoding ;-) ). Struts cannot compete against JSF or Wicket or Tapestry in prototyping speed or in number of services it provides. On the other hand, what do you do if you want to use Front Controller framework? Switch to WebWork and Spring MVC, or to improve Struts? The only reason for Struts to improve is keeping Front controller aka web MVC as a cornerstone pattern. Michael. On 8/25/05, Paul Benedict <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > The subject line asks it all. Is it true? > > I hope we see a version 1.2.8 and a 1.3 soon, but I am > sorry to see all the innovation going into Spring > (YEAH!) and Shale (YAWN!), with no one really wanting > to continue growing the classic framework. > > Is it viable to evolve Struts Classic into Shale, and > mix into the Shale source support for good old Struts? > I say it sounds like a good idea to me but I hope > there are better ideas than mine, or we'd all be in > trouble ;-) > > With that said, this is my opinion based on > observation of the amazing industry progression in the > MVC area. I hope the Struts committers aren't burnt > out. I love Struts which is why I ask this tough > question. I hope I get some good news and be told I am > wrong :) > > Thanks! > Paul > > > > > Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page > http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs > > > - > 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]
Is Struts Dying?
The subject line asks it all. Is it true? I hope we see a version 1.2.8 and a 1.3 soon, but I am sorry to see all the innovation going into Spring (YEAH!) and Shale (YAWN!), with no one really wanting to continue growing the classic framework. Is it viable to evolve Struts Classic into Shale, and mix into the Shale source support for good old Struts? I say it sounds like a good idea to me but I hope there are better ideas than mine, or we'd all be in trouble ;-) With that said, this is my opinion based on observation of the amazing industry progression in the MVC area. I hope the Struts committers aren't burnt out. I love Struts which is why I ask this tough question. I hope I get some good news and be told I am wrong :) Thanks! Paul Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]