Yee CN wrote:
I am in the middle of migrating to facelets and at the same time planning for Shale. It seems to me that Shale Clay and Facelets templating overlaps to a large degree. Is there any guideline on whether the two should/can coexist and which one should be use for any particular circumstances?
They probably can co-exist, but I'd strongly recommend not trying to make them ;-)
You're right, they do overlap a lot. In fact I think they're pretty close to functionally equivalent, bar syntactic differences and a few minor points. I don't know Clay well enough to say that with certainty, though, so if Gary shoots me you'll know why ;-).
So my advice would be to pick either one or the other. Personally I did as you are doing: started using JSF, then started using Facelets, then added Shale into the mix. You can pick and choose which bits of Shale you use, adding in each feature as you have need for it, so this works well. And if you did want to start using Facelets today but switch to Clay later, it shouldn't be too big a deal.
You could also start using Clay directly, without having to immediately start using any of the rest of Shale until you're ready to do so. With the possible exception of the View Controller feature, I don't think Clay requires much else.
Gary will no doubt be able to add additional insight. L.
