I believe this topic has been discussed hundreds of times in different subjects. One of important tasks for a new version is to identify concept leaps. This is the place I would like to entertain your brain - hope everyone to have a brainstorm on what are really the innovative ideas to be built in Struts 2.
To start, let's review what the innovative ideas are in Struts 1.0. Struts is called a MVC framework. But that is not enough, actually there are many other frameworks also called MVC ones. What made Struts unique at its early time is its defining characteristics between form beans and web forms. They are symmetrical entities. In Struts 1.1, another concept leap is introduced, we called it application module. With this concept, the developments of Struts applications scale up. There are some other concept leaps, someone could add more. Struts 1.0/1.1 is recognized as a Controller in general. Now we have the Struts chain. I like the ideas of the chain. In particular, I see the possibility we could transform the Controller into an Integrator based on the chain and the application module. Integrator is a higher concept than Controller in my opinion. Struts 2, as an Integrator, should be able to 1) Integrate faces components from different vendors. 2) Integrate other non-faces component easily, including existing 1.x tag libraries. 3) Integrate expression engines from different vendors. 4) We could add more... (like portlets) The general expectation I have with the Integrator is that application flows can smoothly move around modules while underlying module-wide settings for a particular vendor, say a PropertyResolver in one faces module, can be switched to a different PropertyResolver in another module (Expression engines can be switched too). This is a whiteboard idea. I like to see the idea to be unfolded. One of reasons is that a Struts user may be asked by his/her boss in the future "If every controller function can be done in Faces or other frameworks, what do we gain by using Struts 2?" "Using Struts 2, our applications can cruise across modules built from different vendors or teams. And we could also develop modules for others." Could we realize this dream? I know there are many challenging problems there. Could we think about it in terms of defining characteristics of Struts 2? Jing Netspread Carrier http://www.netspread.com
