A great deal has happened in web application framework land since Struts came along 3-1/2 years ago. There is a boatload of frameworks out there now, and some of them have some great ideas. What I don't really want to end up with is a Struts 2.0 that is simply a reinvention of what other people have done, with a compatibility layer to make it accessible to Struts 1.x developers.
So, what makes Struts Struts? What characteristics do we need to preserve in order to keep it Struts, and retain the greatness that has made it so amazingly popular? How far can we go before the decision to choose Struts 2.0, or not, is no different to a potential developer than the decision to chose any one of the other frameworks out there today? Obviously, compatibility is going to be very important, but I hope that's not all!
I think that's going to come down to "I know it when I see it".
I'd say that Struts (or any framework) is an aggregation of its components. In Struts 1.0, we had mainly Form, Forward, Mapping, Action, and Messaging components. In Struts 1.1, we added Exception, Validation, Composite (or Tile), and PlugIn components.
So long as Struts 2.x retains the same hallmark components in a recognizable form, I'd say it's still Struts.
And, so far, I haven't heard anyone suggest anything that couldn't also be implemented in Struts 1.x over time. It's just that deprecation and migration can be a painful process, and sometimes it's better to bite the bullet and tell people that they might have to change this or that if they want to migrate now.
We've all admitted several times that we would-a could-a done things differently if we knew then what we know now. All anyone is saying is that now is the time to fix the would-a and could-a's.
I don't know about anyone else, but I'm sorta planning on spending yet another twenty years writing business applications, and this seems like a very good time to try and write the best Struts framework we can, and make my declining years easier to bear :)
Of course, the important thing will be for whoever is working on a Struts 2.x implementation to "eat our own dog food", like we had to do for Struts 1.x. If it doesn't work for us, it's surely not going to work for anyone else.
-Ted.
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