I have to agree with your assessment: Struts is a fabulous framework, and now we need a real application development environment to sit on top of it. Kudos to all those writing graphical interfaces to struts, but most of them are just GUI panels on top of the config files. I saw one (can't recall the name) that was commercial and offered page flow mgmt as well - nice addition, but still not where I want to be.
My preferred way of working would be simliar to the old days of NetDynamics (before Sun bought them and closed them up - yeah, yeah, became part of iPlanet - whatever!). Define your project, define your datasource(s), define your pages, define your page fields, bind the data fields from your sources to your page fields. Its sort of like Powerbuilder or M$ tools, but would use the appropriate design patterns. NetD wrote their own app server, since j2ee wasn't out until they were bought by Sun, and servlets were just something cute. Toward the end, they started to support EJB 1.0 and even allowed your page fields to bind to EJB methods (!) rather than to your datasource - viola! Instant data binding to your business methods. They offered page templates (before JSP) with the option of diving into the action and page code to fix things, and offered many ways for most sites (esp intranets that need to publish data quickly) to get going very fast. Now, can this fix everything? No! Can this get rid of your expense developers? No! There are still hard problems to solve, and right/wrong ways to do things.. Can this help your developers spend less time messing with config files, page workflows (wizards, etc), and simple data binding tasks and more time working on the application at hand? I believe so.. Oh, and if there is someone out there who is writing, has written, or intends to write something like this - contact me, I really would like to help or be a beta tester! Enjoy the weekend! James > -----Original Message----- > From: Elderclei R Reami [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > Sent: Friday, August 30, 2002 9:36 AM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Java Server Faces and Developer Life Comments > > > Hi, > > I've just finished my first Struts project, and it's been a > great experience on how to do and not to do things. This > list has been of great help, as well. > > Anyway, I have some comments to make. Please, don't flame me, > because it's just a view someone that needs > to be productive. > > I've developed a project some time ago using .Net framework > and Visual Studio. Wonderful experience, very very > much productive. Creation of a web interface is just a matter > of point and click. First impression: "that's what I > need for mass production, short 'sell, implement, bill' > cycles". Graphical components do keep state during calls, > integration is event-oriented, which makes it easy like > Visual Basic or Delphi traditional dev. Really easy to learn > and use. > > About Struts: hard to use, lack of good development tools, > but years light ahead of pure JSP development. Struts > has all the chances of being the way to go. It just needs to > be made easier to use, what means: GUI > development. I've seen some options: "Eclipse+EasyStruts", > StrutsBuilder, StrutsConsole - great tools, but none > of them really make GUI+Struts integration easy, they are > more like wizards, and need a lot of work yet. > > Even though, I'm passionate about Java, I need to recognize: > M$ really makes UI development a lot easier than > Sun/Java/Open Source Community. If you ever developed a VB > app and a Swing-based Java app, knows what I > mean. The point is: M$ approach is make it easy, our approach > is make it generic, and conceptually beautiful. M$ > approach is "sell it, do it fast with small costs, have more profit". > > I haven't read the entire JSF spec, but I've seen the > tutorial, and as far as I understand it, JSF does not make > programming UI interface much easier than Struts. > > Any comments? The matter is: I have a family, and want to get > home earlier, not 4:00AM. A lot of philosophy and > online psychoterapy for FRIDAY, but... :) > > Cheers, > Elderclei R Reami > Vertis Tecnologia > +55 11 3887-0835 > www.vertisnet.com.br > > > -- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: > <mailto:struts-user-> [EMAIL PROTECTED]> > For > additional commands, > e-mail: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For additional commands, e-mail: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
