I don't know about anyone else around here, but my own goal is to find the easiest and best way to write, maintain, and enhance business applications. In today's enterprise environment, this means web applications. If someone wants me to write Java applications, I write Java applications. If someone wants me to use something else, I can use something else. Means to an end.
IMHO, when we start focusing on this technology versus that technology, we start to miss the point. Most of the patterns and strategies we discuss here and on the user list transcend platform implementation details.
A composable request processor is a composable request processor, whether you implement it in Java, C#, or Python.
The Struts DTD is platform agnostic. It doesn't imply a specific implementation. Right now, the action.type leads to a Action class. But that's just an implementation detail. The soul of Struts is the implementations that our DTD permit and encourage, not the implementations themselves. The land is not the map.
Struts has become a proof of concept for two key ideas. First, that an application could be driven from an XML site map. Second, that custom tags are way better than scriplets. =:0)
We've proven (2) and (1) is becoming accepted. But, IMHO, the important thing isn't whether we use this platform release or that platform release, or even what platform we use. The important thing is where we take the site map. The app is the map.
Sure, the ActionServlet is a front-controller. But, IMHO, the true Controller, the C in MVC, is the graph of objects described by the configuration document. Every plaform provides Models and Views, but little is provided for the Controller. This is why Struts, and the many projects like it, are so important. We are filling a vacuum.
I need to finish my study of JSF before proposing anything, but what I would like to see for Struts "Next Generation" is a more expressive DTD, especially one that could be implemented in different ways and on different platforms. [At which point, I fully expect to branded a heretic and driven off to SourceForge =;0)]
-Ted.
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