Craig McClanahan wrote:
On 3/15/06, Frank W. Zammetti <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Growing like wildfire? Hmm... well, I'm certainly not intimately
familiar with that community, so I can't argue that point.
If you believe that, nothing I can do will persuade you otherwise.
If I believe what Craig? That I'm not familiar with that community?
I'm not. That I can't argue the point? I can't. I have no idea what
you just said here frankly. Or are YOU in fact reading into it what you
want to read into it, as you accuse me of doing here?
You know Craig, you strike me as someone who doesn't like people
disagreeing with you. That's too bad. Re-read my posts over the last
few months. My tune has changed (as you admitted to me at one point by
the way). I have NOT said anything blatantly negative about JSF, and I
have NOT pushed my opinions as fact. And I have NOT been on a crusade
to convince anyone to think as I do. I have pretty clearly said that
these are MY feelings, MY perceptions and MY beliefs. I have also not
said I am right and you (or anyone else) is wrong. In fact, more and
more I've been saying that *I* may in fact wind up being wrong. You
seem to need to see me as an adversary, and that's too bad. It is
simply not the case. The fact that you may not agree with what I say is
fine, but I have as much right to say it as anyone else does.
> I'll
just leave you with my personal belief ... MyFaces is very close to knocking
off Struts as the second most popular Java-focused Apache project (after
Tomcat) by every measure *I* can see. And I talk to *lots* of developers
over time -- not just the few that pay attention to the Struts mailing
lists, and the overwhelming question I get *used* to be "which do I choose,
Struts or JSF", and in the last three months it has turned into "what's my
migration strategy?"
I'll take your word for that. I can tell you that I receive more than a
few messages that say just the opposite, that JSF does not impress them
and they won't be going to it any time soon.
I see more books about JSF that were published in the three *months* after
1.0 went final than in the three *years* after Struts 1.0 went final (and
that takes some doing -- Struts got a *huge* amount of coverage).
Oh, I am SO fighting the urge to answer that.
I see job postings that used to be 80/20 "struts and everything else" start
to be 30/30/20 "struts/JSF/everything else".
I will again take your word for that, I have not been looking at job
listings lately.
I see credible efforts from multiple parties to create JSF based component
libraries ... orders of magnitude more successful than JSP was ever able to
get people to build tag libraries.
Hmm... I see an absolute plethora of taglibs out there on the net... are
you perhaps referring to commercial offerings? You may well be right in
that case.
I see better tool support for JSF than I see for Struts. Again, *months*
rather than years after the 1.0 release.
Well of COURSE you do! JSF is *MADE* for tooling, it *HAS* to be
better! Your statement is a red herring IMO.
And, I see a pretty significant backlash against Struts *because* of our
emphasis on backwards compatibility. Hopefully, SAF 2.0 (the result of the
WW merger) can put that crap to rest -- but I've gotta tell you ... if
Struts developers hadn't been so passionate about backwards compatibility,
it would have *never* seen the early adopters that it saw. Tell me that was
a bad thing.
Nope, absolutely not a bad thing. I think the insistence on
backwards-compatibility, even in the face of criticism, is to the credit
of those that withstood (and continue to withstand) the criticism.
So what are you seeing? Or are you just seeing things you wish were true?
And there it is! Someones' opinion or impression doesn't jive with
yours, so of COURSE they must be imagining things!
And now you get to claim the same thing you did about DJ... I talk to a
lot of developers Craig. Not as many as you I suspect, but a lot. A
good number seem to seek me out because of my public stance on things.
I won't name names unless those people say it's OK to do so, they came
to me in private. But I can tell you that I've heard a very common
theme over the past year or so, and that is that JSF isn't for them at
the moment, but IS improving, and MIGHT be worth it to them down the road.
Now, you see the negative in that apparently and dismiss the positive.
You want everyone to think JSF kicks ass RIGHT NOW. And for some it
absolutely does! I see the positive in it: you, and everyone involved
in JSF, my well be moving in the right direction. Why do you,
seemingly, have such a problem with people saying "I don't much care for
it now, but maybe eventually"? Because *THAT* is precisely what I've
been saying for months now, and if you don't believe me, spend some time
in the archives. Yes, I've made my criticisms, but I've nearly always
followed it with "but there is still hope". Look at the glass half
full, not half empty, and you might not be as upset with me as this post
seems to indicate.
Legacy doesn't count in this equation -- *of course* if you have existing
apps based on Struts you are going to be pretty passionate about ongoing
support. And for those folks, the activity around Struts Action Framework
and the WebWork merge is absolute goodness. But it's time to stop being an
ostrich, and understand that JSF is *already* here to stay. You seem to be
one of the repeaters of the "JSF hasn't lived up to expectations" mantra.
*Whose* expectations are you talking about? Your perception of this
certainly does not match my experience over the last couple of years.
And conversely, yours does not match mine. But, and this is the part
you should take away IMO, I'm moving towards you! Have been for some time.
As for the expectations, DJ ironically says it better than I do... JSF
has been around for a number of years and is not yet #1. As much hype
as we've been hearing the whole time, my expectation is that it would
be. IT MIGHT WIND UP BEING #1. That's really where the problem comes
from Craig, the constant hype and the constant regurgitation of the
"this is the future" mantra (talking about mantras!). If we weren't
constantly being force-fed JSF, I for one would have virtually nothing
to complain about. Your right, I am a repeater of that mantra. I don't
deny it. You want to know whos expectations? Everyone that has ever
told us that JSF is the greatest thing since sliced bread. That sets an
expectation that virtually nothing could live up to.
* If you have existing Struts based apps, don't feel threatened into being
forced to move. Struts
Action Framework will take care of your needs, and has a clear roadmap
(with the WW2 merger)
to make your life better.
I like that answer. Completely appropriate.
* If you have existing Struts based apps, but need some of the benefits that
components can
bring you (but also don't have time to migrate an entire app) ... no
problem. The Struts-Faces
integration library allows you to transition from one architecture to the
other, one page at a time,
althougth this is not an optimum long term architectuire. But it means
you are *not* stuck
having to convert your entire app at once.
Also a perfect answer.
* If you are starting a new project, you owe it to yourself to evaluate the
benefits a component
oriented architecture can bring to your application. If you don't know
that those are, shame on you :-).
Note that there are no functional limitations ( i.e. things you can do in
an action oriented framework
that you cannot do in an appropriately architected component framework),
so the key decision
point needs to be whether you can benefit from components or not.
Opinions that the underlying
architecture of the framework really matters to anyone beyond framework
geeks needs to be
*seriously* questioned :-).
And, this might surprise you: I couldn't agree more!
* If you need to transition from Struts to a JSF-based architecture, it is
much less painful than you
might be led to believe by the currently popular FUD :-).
Ah, but it goes both ways, and I already know you don't agree :) Moving
to JSF is not as painless as some would lead you to believe... well,
unless perhaps if you buy into the tooling 100%. Even then, maybe not.
> And, as an
added benefit, transitioning
from what's likely to emerge from the WebWork merger into Struts Action
Framework 2 is going to
be even easier :-). The WW2 concept of an action class, and the JSF
notion of a backing bean,
are virtually indistinuishable. The only substantive differences are in
how you customize the
overall framework behavior ... and that is more in the "how do I do it"
details, rather than
"what can i do."
Agreed there again.
Craig, I certainly hope this reply doesn't put us permanently at odds.
We were almost at that point in the past, and I take full responsibility
for that instance, but I thought we had pulled back from the abyss :)
This time I absolutely won't take responsibility for it though. We
clearly have some differing ideas here, and I would hope that isn't a
problem for you. I can tell you I always read your posts with great
interest, even when I totally disagree with you, because I respect your
achievements and value your insights. I can only hope you can say the
same, whether about me or about anyone else that says things you don't
agree with. I don't begrudge you the right to say whatever you think,
even when it is completely at odds with me, and I sincerely hope you
have the same feeling the other way.
Frank
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