Well said Ted! I'll add that while my attentions have lately been mostly towards getting WebWork 2 of the incubator and starting Struts Action 2, I certainly am not abandoning Struts Action 1. While all the activity might not be apparent on this list, we've been hard at work migrating to a new Maven 2 build so that we can get the next release, 1.3.2, out the door. The new build will make it easier for extensions such as Streck to build and integrate with Struts 1.x, and hopefully result in a better site layout and more documentation. Do not take the lack of new features to mean a lack of interest. There are many other tasks required for project management, and the development cycle is not always at the same stage.
I am personally very excited about the Strecks project, as it fits into my goal of developing a Java 5 annotation layer shared between Struts Action 1 and 2 that will allow apps to more easily make the transition. Once WebWork 2 gets out of the incubator, expect to see a flurry of activity towards Java 5 annotations, better error report, easier development models, and smoother Ajax-enabling to name a few. I fully expect at least a few of these features to trickle down to Action 1, as long as it doesn't disrupt the continued stability of the project and code. In fact, as more of these extensions like Strecks come to be, I wouldn't be surprised to see the innovation flow in the other direction as well! The bottom line is, IMO, the Struts project hasn't been as good as it could be at sharing our roadmap and vision with the user community. It is a personal goal of mine to improve this, and to see the continued success of both projects. I do appreciate all the feedback, both good and bad, we've received, and I strongly encourage all involved in these "Struts Future" discussions to get active - post bug reports and feature requests, submit patches, improve docs on the wiki, etc. Struts is only as successful as its community of active developers _and_ users. Don On 4/20/06, Ted Husted <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On 4/19/06, Alexandre Poitras <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Second, all the comitters have answered your questions very nicely > > Yes, we have. Here's a handy summary for future reference: > > The Apache Struts project continues to move that the same pace we > always have. We generally run 18 months to 24 months between release > series. The Struts 1.3.x series has already begun, and a 1.3.0 build > is available for testing. From the beginning, there were several teams > that started after us and issued a 1.0 release before Struts 1.0 came > out in June 2001. Other teams do move faster, but faster is not always > better. > > We add committers on a regular basis. We use the same protocols as all > other ASF projects. (Right now, there are about thirty active ASF > projects with almost two thousand committers.) ASF projects look for > "people that we believe are devoted to the task and match the human > attitudes required to work well with others, especially in > disagreement". There are no "lead developers" on ASF projects. Every > binding vote counts as much as every other. Voting aside, everyone is > invited to donate patches and participate in the development > discussions. Some ASF projects always post a patch before committing > it. We aren't asking anyone to do something that we wouldn't do > ourselves. > > We do *not* consider other projects "competitors". We consider > ourselves colleagues who are trying to solve the same problem in > different ways, in search of better solutions. The Apache Struts > website links to several similar projects, like Wicket and Spring MVC, > and our FAQ encourages visitors to look for the solution that best > serves their own needs. The ASF alone has five web application > framework projects. In the data persistence area, we have four > products now, and a fifth is in the Incubator. For us, it's not about > "competition", it's about a community of developers working together > to find different ways to solve our own problems. > > For Apache Struts 2.0, we've had three formal proposals. One of those > turned in to a subproject, Shale (which is nearing a stable release). > Another, Ti, evolved into a merger with one of our colleague projects, > WebWork. As we worked on Ti, which was based on XWork, the lead > WebWork committers mentioned that they would like to join forces with > another framework. At first, Don and I thought that "joining forces" > meant that we would start a new project, but Patrick and Jason wanted > to join Apache Struts instead. So that's the path we followed. We are > not interested in reinventing the wheel. All we want to do is create > and maintain the frameworks that we want to use to build our own > applications. > > We do have committers who remain interested in the Struts Action 1.x > codebase. We have 1.x applications in production, just like everyone > else. Most of these applications would not be migrated to Action 2, > but would be maintained in their current form. (I have a stable > application that is based on Struts 1.0, and it works just fine, thank > you very much.) Of course, like anyone else with Action 1.x > applications, the committers are going to be interested in new > extensions, like Strecks, as well as proposals and patches as to how > to continue evolving the 1.x codebase. Anyone actually following > Struts 1.x development knows that we do accept and apply patches on a > regular basis. > > In the field, I find that many teams have standardized on Struts 1.1, > and have no wish to change. Struts 1.1 is solving their problems, and > until they have new problems, they are happy campers. Personally, I > don't believe that most teams don't want to update their web > application more than once every two years. It was not our intention > to move slowly, but, in retrospect, I believe that a calm and steady > pace is one reason Struts 1.x remains the most popular web application > framework for Java. > > New and improved extensions to Action 1 continue to appear regularly. > In *2006* alone, we've seen the release of Strecks, JSP Control Tags, > Sprout, Spring Web Flow, DWR, Calyxo, FormDef, and Java Web Parts. > There are dozens of books and literally hundreds of articles available > to help people get started with Action 1 or improve the application > they already have. > > For more, see the Apache Struts roadmap FAQ > > * http://struts.apache.org/roadmap.html > > HTH, Ted. > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > >
