Specifically, what would you change? David
--- Dan Jacobs <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > [ potentially controversial topic ] > Hi all, > I have noticed that most of my Struts applications > end up being > implemented like dismembered objects. > > I design the controller parts of my Struts > applications using > object-oriented design techniques, but then I have > to transform my > designs into an awkward, non-object-oriented form: > > * What was originally encapsulated object state has > to be extracted > and isolated as ActionForms. > > * What were originally methods that acted on > encapsulated object state > have to become stateless processors in the form of > Actions. > > * The Struts servlet acts like another > method-turned-C-function when > it resets and assigns property-values in the > ActionForms. > > I can translate in the other direction too. If I > take someone else's > Struts application, I can derive an effective object > model from the > relationships between the Actions and ActionForms > described in the > struts-config.xml file. That's really useful for > figuring out what's > going on. > > There's no problem getting all of this to work, and > the Struts servlet > and framework do some very useful things. But the > separation of the > Actions from the ActionForms makes it harder to > maintain the integrity > of the original object-oriented designs. > > What I'd really like to see is a truly > object-oriented approach to the > controller, where the state of the web-application > is encapsulated as > instances of real classes (not just the equivalent > of C struts) that > are acted on by methods. The methods would be > invoked just like > Actions are currently invoked, but rather than pass > behavior-less data > to data-less functions, we could have methods acting > on encapsulated > object state. Who knows - maybe someday we could > even have subclasses > and inheritance and constructors and methods with > method parameters. > > If action-mappings could map to methods invoked on > named instances, > Actions and ActionForms could be merged into real > objects, and the > object-oriented character of controller designs > could be maintained. > > Is there any compelling reason that this shouldn't > be done? > > > I can get the object-oriented behavior I want using > JPlates, but I > don't want to have to duplicate all of the other > contributions that > Struts offers for web-applications. I use JPlates > with Struts, but > I'd be happier with a more object-oriented version > of Struts. > > Dan Jacobs > JPlates Inc. > http://www.jplates.com > > > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > For additional commands, e-mail: > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month! http://sbc.yahoo.com --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
