On 7/22/05, Michael Jouravlev <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I was thinking about should I post a quote from an article which > discusses a rival project? Then I thought, whatever. They already got > Shale.
Spring isn't a rival. Spring and Struts are good friends. The Spring IOC container works great for the model layer of a Struts applications. You can even use Spring from within a Struts Action. I haven't tried it, but I'm sure you could even load the Struts configuration from Spring, and have one IOC solution, end to end. Meanwhile, Spring MVC is very Struts-like, which, considering the high programming standards of the Spring tream, I take as a great complement :) > "Overall, J2EE Web frameworks are in a state of flux, having no clear > technology leader. Struts is the most popular Web framework, but its > chief architect and one of its lead developers have abandoned it. The > proclaimed successor specification, JSF (Java Server Faces), has yet > to win the hearts and minds of Struts developers. In the meantime, > other frameworks are gaining respect and popularity." It is sad that an otherwise fine article is spoiled by this bit of spin :) If Spring brings out a new web framework, it's hailed as an innovation. If Struts brrings out a new web framework, we're "deserters". LOL. Of course, J2EE frameworks are not in a state of flux. Anyone who brings anything out in the JSEE web arena, makes sure that it has some link to Struts. The Spring WebFlow being an excellent case in point. Right now, J2EE is starting to go through the same transition Microsoft went through two years ago, when "classic" ASP came up against ASP.NET. And, even there, the transition continues. Five years later, I know Classic ASP shops that are just now planning a migration. For J2EE applications, it's likely that the transition will take even longer, since most Struts applications have *much* longer lifecycles than most classic ASP applications. The J2EE transition is not going to happen in "Internet time". It will happen in "Enterprise time". While it may be true that JSF is faster for new development, many of us are not doing so much new development now. We're maintaining the web applications we've already got, or finishing applications that we've already started. Struts promised us applications that would be easier to maintain than rewrite, and Struts delivered. Some of us just spent several years building an enterprise application with Struts, and we're not planning a new product cycle any time soon. Many others, after a year or two of planning, are just beginning a multi-year project, and the choice of Struts has already been signed and sealed. New projects will be shipping under Struts for years to come, and will be maintained under Struts for many years to follow. It will be a very long time, even a decade, before Struts Classic could even begin to think about fading away. The tyranny of the installed base will not permit otherwise. Of course, to my mind, the strangest part of the spin is that it totally misses the point of an Apache project. An Apache project is suppose to outlive the interest of its creators. Guys like Craig are suppose to be able to go on to other things, and the project is suppose to be able to steam along, with Borg-like aplomb. And, we have. We released 1.27 a short time ago, and, if James has his way, a 1.3.0 release is imminent. Of course, 1.3.0 will be very-much-a-beta, but it's coming. Since we've maintained strict backward compatability from 1.0, we haven't rolled the major version number, but 1.3.x will mark the fourth major release of Struts in six years. Given the release cycles of products like J2EE and ASP.NET, that's par for the course. Of course, we all know that Craig has not left the building. His contributions to the project continue to be invaluable. But, it should not be surprising that Struts Classic development marches on. Many Struts essentials -- like Tiles, the Validator, DispatchActions, declarative exception handling, JAAS integration, Nested tags -- are all technologies that other developers brought to the table. And people continue to bring new Struts techologies to the table every day. Like, say, the Struts-compatible Spring WebFlow :) -Ted. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
