-1. Jakarta already has two webapp frameworks and I do not see any reason to add another. It is great that Tapestry uses several jakarta technologies; I would like to see some evidence of the Tapestry community being involved in the jakarta projects of which it makes use. One other warning sign I see is that the second sentence on the homepage:
Tapestry is a powerful, open-source, all-Java framework for creating leading edge web applications in Java. Tapestry has been developed by Howard Lewis Ship. Even though the project has other developers, such a statement so boldly displayed, is a red flag. Not that other essentially one man projects have not attracted developers at jakarta, but, again, jakarta already has 2 webapp framework projects. john mcnally On Fri, 2002-10-18 at 07:29, Ship, Howard wrote: > Background > > Tapestry, currently housed at the SourceForge (http://tapestry.sf.net), is >component-based web application framework. Tapestry falls generally into the >pull-MVC model of development. > > Tapestry is designed specifically around the creation of completely re-usable >components. Components can easily be packaged into libraries and distributed as Jar >files, even when they contain assets such as image files and stylesheets. > > Tapestry is organized around an abstraction that isolates application-specific logic >from the details of the servlet API, such as HttpSession, request, response, URLs and >query parameters. > > Tapestry is highly pluggable, allowing any and all behavior to be customized by >subclassing appropriate base classes. > > Tapestry is specifically not a JSP taglib, though future enhancements (scheduled for >the next release) will allow it to partially act as one. Tapestry uses its own >method for instrumenting HTML that is extremely non-obtrusive (it still previews >properly in a WYSIWYG editor). Tapestry has well specified, separate roles for HTML >producers and Java developers, and allows them to work together without interfering >with each other. > > The goal of Tapestry is to shift much of the burden of developing web applications >onto the framework, and free the developer to work cleanly and effectively without >concern for the many small details of web application development. The primary >function of Tapestry is the automatic creation of URLs by the framework, facilitating >a fine-grained dispatch model. The bird's-eye view is that, in Tapestry, actions >(such as clicking a link, or submitting a form) are associated with a particular >component and, through a simple delegation system, a particular bit of user code. >There is no global registry of actions, as in Struts, and it's easy to create >reusable components that define their own behaviors (in terms of links or forms), >independent of the containing page. > > Tapestry applications can be extremely sophisticated with surprising little code. > > Tapestry includes a significant amount of documentation describing its strengths and >features in great detail, available at http://tapestry.sf.net. Live demos, a great >collection of user quotes, extensive documentation (HTML and PDF) and a recent code >coverage report are all online. > > Tapestry has been an open-source project on SourceForge since June 2000. Milestone >releases (such as 2.1 in July, or the just-released 2.2) result in 6K - 7K downloads >(increasing by over 1K downloads with each successive release). Tapestry has >averaged over 3000 downloads a month during 2002, with peaks above 8K/month. > > Tapestry would benefit from Jakarta in terms of greater exposure and acceptance, but >also in terms of better infrastructure, such as Bugzilla and Maven. > > Tapestry is currently in the Java package net.sf.tapestry; this could easily be >changed to org.apache.tapestry. > > Tapestry is currently licensed under the LGPL, but relicensing under the Apache >license is completely acceptible. The main criteria used when selecting a license >three years ago was that Tapestry be open source and reusable even in proprietary >software, and both licenses ensure that. > > In order to spur discussions, I've worked through the list of criteria and warning >signs (as per http://jakarta.apache.org/site/newproject.html). Pardon the use of >third person in reference to myself (it seemed appropriate for prose that will likely >be cut and pasted frequently). > > Criteria > > Meritocracy: Tapestry is currently a benign dictatorship, but it has been Howard >Lewis Ship's intention, even prior to considering a move to Jakarta, to organize >around more democratic principals. > > Community: Tapestry has a modest, but very active community, centered around a >mailing list (approx. 170 members) and the Tapestry Wiki >(http://tapestry.sf.net/wiki). The Tapestry mailing list has an exceptionally good >signal-to-noise ratio; discussions typically revolve around planning new extensions >to the framework, creating new components and documentation, and diagnosing developer >issues. > > Core Developers. The principal developer for the life of the project is Howard >Lewis Ship, he will continue his involvement with Tapestry indefinitely. Richard >Lewis-Shell and Mind Bridge are frequent contributors of components and bug fixes. >Neil Clayton and Malcolm Edgar provide some code and significant amounts of >documentation. Geoff Longman has created an excellent plugin for the Eclipse IDE (as >a separate project). Several other developers have contributed bugs fixes, >components or documentation in the past. > > Alignment: Tapestry makes use of the ORO, commons-lang and commons-logging packages >internally. > > Scope: Tapestry is entirely a server-side framework, well aligned with the overall >goals of the Jakarta project. > > Warning Signs > > Orphaned products. Tapestry is far from orphaned, it was originally conceived and >executed specifically as an open-source project. > > Inexperience: Howard Lewis Ship has been coding, documenting, mentoring and >managing this open source project for nearly three years. > > Homogeneous Developers: All of the committers listed above came to the project >entirely through appreciation of its qualities (none are known to Howard Lewis Ship >except through Tapestry); representatives from Canada, England, Australia and New >Zealand are included; other contributors represent South America and Asia (no records >have been kept on contributor's country of origin). This is just the opposite of the >"smoke filled room". > > Reliance on Salaried Developers. Tapestry is largely developed during free time. >Many contributions are developed by consultants to address specific needs of their >clients, then modularized and provided back to the community (for example, Geoff is >developing a workflow management subsystem for Tapestry that may be released into the >framework proper when completed). Increasingly, developers are finishing projects >with Tapestry and contributing components created for those projects back into the >framework. > > No ties to other Apache Products: As stated above, Tapestry makes use of the ORO >and commons packages and has numerous places where greater integration with Jakarta >could occur. It is servlet container agnostic, working well with Tomcat, Jetty, >Resin and others. > > Fascination with Apache Brand: Tapestry has been, and always will be an open-source >project. > > Overlap with Turbine > > Turbine has a similar model to Tapestry, but uses more levels of abstraction >(Layout, Module and Navigation where Tapestry simply has Component). Turbine >provides more choices for rendering responses, whereas Tapestry supports only its own >HTML template format. > > The focus of the two projects is somewhat divergent. Turbine is a service-oriented >where Tapestry is component-oriented. Turbine provides a larger toolkit (in the form >of services) for aspects of the application not related directly to the presentation >layer. Tapestry provides more flexibility and power in the presentation layer but >doesn't provide any other services (such as scheduling, database access, security, >etc.). > > Many Tapestry developers are using Tapestry for the presentation layer, but >leveraging the many Turbine services (especially Torque). > > Summary > > Tapestry is a mature, powerful framework whose focus aligns well with the overall >scope of the Jakarta project. Both Tapestry and Jakarta would be well served by >moving Tapestry under the Jakarta umbrella. > > -- > Howard Lewis Ship > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://tapestry.sf.net > > > -- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: <mailto:general-unsubscribe@;jakarta.apache.org> > For additional commands, e-mail: <mailto:general-help@;jakarta.apache.org> -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: <mailto:general-unsubscribe@;jakarta.apache.org> For additional commands, e-mail: <mailto:general-help@;jakarta.apache.org>
