Rob Jellinghaus <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote on 10/04/2002 07:50:27 AM:
> One of the difficult things in open source development is getting a sense > of where a project is headed... todo information tends to only slightly > capture what a given group of hackers is really focused on, and it's hard > to glean total insight from the mailing lists. > > So: I am spinning up on open-source Java web app frameworks. The main > contenders seem to be Cocoon, Struts, and Maverick. > > Cocoon (http://xml.apache.org/cocoon) looked really good (especially its > focus on efficient SAX processing), but it seems that Cocoon started from a > document processing orientation (publishing content in lots of different > ways) rather than from an interactive application orientation (supporting > control flow throughout an interactive web app). Cocoon has support for > interaction but it is hard to see how to use it, especially once I started > looking at Struts where it couldn't be clearer. So I have (with some > regret) backed off of Cocoon. > > Struts (http://jakarta.apache.org/struts, of course) has a very > straightforward concept of action mapping and website interaction, which I > like a lot. Its documentation is also in very good shape, and its > developer community seems to be thriving. However, Struts is currently > fairly wedded to JSP, at least in its 1.0.2 and 1.1-beta distributions; > there seems to be no integrated support for using non-JSP > presentations. Especially when compared to: > > Maverick (http://mav.sourceforge.net) has (on cursory examination) a clean > ability to plug in different presentation frameworks. (JSP, XSLT, or > Velocity at the moment.) It also seems to share Struts' ease of > interaction configurability. However, it also is a lot younger than > Struts, and it lacks the mass of Struts examples and documentation. > > In an email thread discussing the Model 2X Javaworld article > (http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/jw-02-2002/jw-0201-strutsxslt.html), > Ted Husted and Jeff Schnitzer seemed to agree that Struts and Maverick had > a lot in common, and that it might make sense to merge the projects, or at > least to continue moving Struts in the direction of making it easier to > plug in alternate presentation frameworks: > > http://www.mail-archive.com/struts-user@jakarta.apache.org/msg22749.html > http://www.mail-archive.com/struts-user@jakarta.apache.org/msg22760.html > > My questions are really for Struts developers (and Maverick developers): > > Is there consensus that making Struts more presentation-pluggable, or in > some other way more amenable to using other presentation frameworks, is the > direction Struts should go? +1. > If so, is there any plan for doing the work? Is anyone doing active > development in this area right now? I have seen various references (the > code linked from the above Model 2X article; Ted Husted's "Velocity > servlet") that indicate that people have done some work in this area > already, but it certainly hasn't made it into the Struts mainline. Will > it? How? +0 - love 2 be able to help, but don't have much time. > I am very motivated to help make this happen... unfortunately I'm > time-constrained. But having a clearer picture of whether others are Time constrained - know the feeling :) > moving in this direction could help me (and others?) understand eactly > where to pitch in to move this forwards. I've worked on two projects integrating struts and xslt. I'm not happy with the approach at the moment. I'd love to keep the discussion going... -- dIon Gillard, Multitask Consulting Work: http://www.multitask.com.au Developers: http://adslgateway.multitask.com.au/developers -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For additional commands, e-mail: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
