Correctly stated, some of the Struts taglibs have been superseded by JSTL.
We are starting a major new project and we are trying to guess which technologies have the best
viability. We have made a decision to use Struts because it is the best current solution and we
think the controller aspects of Struts will be around for several years. We will use JSTL because
it is a functional standard that is easy to use and it integrates with the Struts html-el tags. We have a "wait and see" attitude toward JSF.
A perfecty rational attitude at the moment, although I would still recommend becoming familiar with the new technology. I think you'll find the adoption uptake (once JavaServer Faces goes final) to be pretty fast.
As someone who started out processing HTML forms with CGI and PERL, I am very thankful for the
contributions made by the Struts team. I often wonder why the JCP didn't take in Struts as a
standard and build on that standard. Instead, it looks like they kidnapped one of the main
developers of Struts and started from scratch with Java Server Faces. :)
Not exactly "kidnapped" -- I'm getting *paid* to develop JavaServer Faces :-).
More seriously, though, the sweet spot that JavaServer Faces aims at is somewhat different than where Struts is aimed at. JavaServer Faces is aimed primarly at providing rich components, and just enough foundational stuff to build an application framework on top of. Struts doesn't have a UI component model at all (the HTML tags do not count -- they are simply ways to render simple input fields -- which is why we have to work so hard at things like tree controls and grids), but shines in its overall framework characteristics. The right answer will be to use both technologies when you need both feature sets.
I wouldn't be surprised to see standardization in the web application framework space at some point ... but it needs to be based on a standard UI component model first. In the mean time, JavaServer Faces is also focused on providing sufficient APIs and metadata to make high quality tooling easier; that is one of the other things that Microsoft learned.
The key point in determining the dominance of a technology is the quality of the tools developedActually, tools support for Struts is pretty broad at the moment, and inertia is a *very* powerful force ... JavaServer Faces will have some catching up to do, but it's clear that this is going to happen quickly.
to implement that technology (the "Beast of Redmond" clearly understands this concept). People
who have resources to invest in the development of tools are going to make that investment based
on establish standards. That is why I think JSF will eventually supersede Struts.
MikeCraig
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