<CTG>comments inline </CTG>
At 03:26 PM 6/13/2003, you wrote:
Chris, Thanks for your response, I find many of your arguments and others compelling. Please note that I am working with Struts when I had the opportunity to work with .NET. (Just what does that say about me? :-) )I agree with the majority of what you wrote and probably didn't fully understand the parts I might have issue with.
The issue here is the perception by the majority of the business world.
<CTG>I agree, and am dismayed that "the business world has been so artfully misled</CTG>
I will be using many of the issues raised here to try and to get more acceptance for Struts/JSP.... If you need any proof of the business acceptance of .NET just look at the job sites for web developers and see how many listings are for .NET and how many are for Struts/JSP etc.
<CTG>It's a shame that the advertising for "web developers" can be used as a measure of the need for people who conceive, architect, design, and develop "real" systems. The "Web" component of any business-central system is only the top or outer-most layer.</CTG>
I have used the argument that
"Real productivity lies in the ability to provide rich, complex functionality that supports real people in getting real things done."
the .NET heads ( is there a term used to describe them? ) come back and say that it is easier and faster to build in C# then Java. They say that the tools to work with C# are better ( I don't agree ). In fairness, we should not assume that .NET developers are going to skip design or write GUIs with no functionality. We should look at the total cost of development.
<CTG>Agreed. And the total cost of development "BEGINS" with the inital rendering of a UI, and extends forward into time for the whole life of the project/system. The initail ease of rendering the UI is vastly overwhelmed by the lifetime costs of the system.</CTG>
I must take issue with your point that "It's this complexity that goes begging when UI construction is the sole (or even majority) measure of productivity."
The fact is that as of right now you can build and maintain a GUI using .NET faster and easier (read productivity). You can build rich and complex functionality using C#. The building the business functionality is basically on par between Java and C#. Is it not fair to say that the productivity gained in the GUI construction is a clear win for .NET?
<CTG>Mixing and matching. Is it indeed a fact that building & maintaining a GUI using .NET is faster and easier? How about it Vic? Is architecting a Struts application using Actions as atomic business operations wired together with the I/O via struts-config employing configurable forwards to customize logic flow on a par with .NET? (I don't know, and don't know anyone else who really does, either)</CTG>
If you take two groups one for Java/Struts/et. al. and one for .NET, where they are equally proficient in their respective technologies, and give them the same application to build, which will be done first? Bottom line who gets the job done first? The business world has decided that the .NET team will be done first. From what I have seen myself I have little reason to doubt this.
<CTG>When IS "done". First deployment? First adjustment? Last enhancement? Abandonment? I enjoy being pedantic ;-), and have worked on too many business systems to buy into the "done when first seen" line. And is "the business world" the same clods who bet everybody's farm on the webification of everything? My experience with corporate clients is that serious businesses are beginning to invest again in getting their people involved with the technology that will enable them to provide the best value, now and going into the future. And that's Java. Good for now. Good for later. Robust, mature technology. Competition in the marketplace. Assured functionality via widely supported standards without onerous locked in licensing fees.</CTG>
I have made the argument about how much richer Java is as a language, and what I hear back is that the difference between Java and C# is like the difference between Coke and Pepsi. Again, perception is reality.
<CTG>So we need to publish, promulgate, provoke, persuade, and otherwise p-verb until we alter the "perception"</CTG>
Good tools do have a direct impact on development schedules. When are we going to have JSF and the tools to support it? Are the anti-Microsquish league (IBM, SUN, Oracle, et. al.) going to come up with tools to match .NET?
<CTG>The only tools lacking in this analysis, it seems, are the GUI tools, and I hope the answer is "yes".</CTG>
Lastly, one of our teams here is writing a .NET front-end talking to Web Services supplied by a Java J2EE middle tier. The say they are having their cake and are able to eat it too. The interesting thing is they are succeeding and are getting their applications to the users faster and management has noticed.
<CTG>The server side functionality of their app is Java? Yea! That's a GOOD thing.</CTG>
Glenn
<CTG>One last emphasis - Struts is a wonderful piece of work in and of itself. It's as valuable as an example of the type of software that CAN be developed to satisfy a particular set of problems. Completely open. If anyone has a need to build a dynamically configurable application that interacts with external actors via well-defined protocols according to declaratively supplied behaviours they can look to Struts as a mode. Can the same be said for the .NET tools?
And I cannot believe that the .NET solution will be as flexible as Java-based solutions. The motivations of the sponsors are different. MS needs to lock everyone into "the one way" in order to control the environment and maximize revenue; Java's sponsors promote a high level of adherence to standards while adding value through extensions to the standard, customizations, and professional standards.
The MS approach will enable cookie-cutter applications to be stamped out by minimally skilled worker bees. The Java approach will encourage and enable a variety of solutions, architectures, application styles and types to emerge, each suited to distinct problem domains. If I were in "the business world" I wouldn't want to close down my future flexibility and increase my ongoing maintenance costs by choosing a closed fixed-form GUI-building tool solution.
I'm really looking forward to Struts' evolution, and comforted in knowing that I'll be able to see it, understand it, and be able to explain it to the business world.
</CTG>
Chris
-----Original Message----- From: Chris Gerrard [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, June 13, 2003 1:48 PM To: Struts Developers List Subject: RE: Struts can't "get its act together" - JavaPro
Glenn,
I'm continuously unimpressed by the implicit assumption that "Developer Productivity" == "GUI construction". The blind acceptance of this hoary old chestnut has been a huge impediment to real progress in developing better systems.
Given that the rapid construction of a UI is a good thing, what's my beef?
Simply put, there's a whole world of complexity behind the UI that needs to be conceived of, designed, and implemented before the application is useful. It's this complexity that goes begging when UI construction is the sole (or even majority) measure of productivity.
There are levels of productivity. GUI building is on the surface, easy to see. But it's thin, and not nourishing. Real productivity lies in the ability to provide rich, complex functionality that supports real people in getting real things done.
GUI tools tend to concentrate on the thin layer on top, providing some hardwired mechanism(s) underneath to support the UI. This is an extreme limitation in real productivity in that it limits the access the developers have to the underlying bits. Struts provides the framework that lets us deal with the UI and get past it into the Java world where we're really limited only by our own skills and knowledge.
Like Vic said in his post, I provide training in Struts (and other stuff) to corporate clients. I recently mentored a bunch of mainframe programmers starting up with Java/Struts in order to reimplement their existing FoxPro application. It's a simple customer info collection application - get some info into a form, save it, find it, update it, save the changes. The UI side of things is straightforward with Struts, as it would be with other technologies. BUT, real complexity lies unspoken in the "find it" functionality.
The naive approach is to provide a single-field input form accepting a client ID# which is used to look up the info. Next up is the "search form" approach: "Let's give them a form that looks like the input form, let them fill in some value(s) and then search for their info". OK, now we're talking. What fields are on the form? How do the values entered interact with one another - implicit ANDs or ORs, or do we try to give them a real query builder? And so it goes. Even better, as the user population gains experience with the application, having a flexible powerful language and platform underneath employed via strong, supple frameworks and architectures makes it much, much easier to continually improve things than is the case for systems built from GUI-oriented tools lacking Java's access to the machinery.
Up until now the Java world has concentrated on core technology, and thereby enabled core productivity. Struts has brought us up to the surface, and things have always improved. I'm really hoping that JavaServer Faces will provide the rapid UI-building experience other tools and technologies enjoy. Once that happens the world will change. It'll be Java all the way down.
Chris
At 03:14 PM 6/11/2003, you wrote: >Chris, >I tend to agree with your assessment of JavaPro but I'd like to open this up >a little. Right now we are faced with two choices for web development .Net >or not .Net. I can over-simplify the arguments for and against .Net as the >following: > >.NET >Pluses >Developer Productivity >Negatives >Vendor lock in. > >Others (including Struts) >Pluses >No vendor lock in >Negatives >Less developer Productivity > >It seems like many if not most companies are more interested in developer >productivity. > >Does anyone know of, or foresee any means by which we (developers) will be >able to be as productive using Struts/JSP/DHTML/JavaScript etc. as people >are using .Net? I'd love to be able to make a case against .Net . > >Thanks > >Glenn > > >-----Original Message----- >From: Chris Gerrard [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] >Sent: Wednesday, June 11, 2003 12:07 PM >To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >Subject: Stuts can't "get its act together" - JavaPro > > >I found this announcement today on JavaPro's August Issue online "In Brief" >site: >http://www.ftponline.com/javapro/2003_08/magazine/departments/inbrief/defau l >t.asp > >The blurb: >Developer Tools >TurboM2 >Tired of waiting for The Apache Group to get its act together with the >Struts initiative, Virtuas has launched a framework of its own. Virtuas >released TurboM2 previously under the name Web Application Model (WAM). >Since then, the company decided to alter the product to perform many of the >features Struts offers, and like Struts will be released under the open >source model. > >There's more, but on casual inspection it appears that JavaPro has simply >regurgitated some marketing poo from Virtuas intended to convey the >impression that Struts is in a funk and not moving forward. (so one should >naturally move to Virtuas' TurboM2 product) > >Upon casual inspection it appears that TurboM2 is a fairly direct clone of >Struts. On of Virtuas' value-added claims is that TurboM2 has available >support and training that Struts does not. > >Links: >Virtuas TurboM2: http://www.turbom2.org/index.html >Struts/TurboM2 comparison: http://www.turbom2.org/docs/Comparison.pdf > >The part that disturbs me is JavaPro's presenting this whole pile as if it >were truth. Someone reading this article could well be persuaded that yes, >indeed, Struts is in trouble and they should look elsewhere. I've been less >than impressed with JavaPro's content for some time, and this erodes my >confidence in their editorial control and knowledge of the Java world even >further.
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