> -----Original Message----- > From: phillips1021 [mailto:bphill...@ku.edu] > Sent: Wednesday, November 25, 2009 11:29 AM > To: user@struts.apache.org > Subject: Is Using Spring With Struts 2 A Good Idea? > > > At the University of Kansas (#1 college basketball team :) we use Struts 2 > for our web application framework. Its worked very well for us. > > I've been learning the Spring framework and how to use it with Struts 2. I > think the two frameworks work very well together. > > I'm preparing a class for the other Java developers on how to use Struts 2 > and Spring together. As part of my research I'd like to hear from other > Struts 2 developers on if you use Spring with Struts 2 and if you think its > a good or bad practice. > > Thanks in advance for any feedback you can provide on why or why not it's a > good idea to use Struts 2 with Spring. > > Bruce Phillips > http://www.brucephillips.name/blog http://www.brucephillips.name/blog > >
Bruce, I am currently working on a commercial product that combines the two. I could sing songs of praise, but I figure you've already gotten a few of those messages, so I will try to come up with a few drawbacks I've noticed. One thing I noticed early on is that it seriously compounds the amount of XML configuration you will have to manage. I am a fan of the Conventions plugin, but still feel obligated to stick to traditional (explicit) configuration for projects of serious size. I just deployed an app recently at a customer that contains 1678 lines of XML configuration just for struts and spring (this does not include sitemesh, web.xml, maven poms, etc.). Another thing I noticed is that this (these) project(s) now require a significant learning curve. I think most of the people on this list wouldn't be scared to jump into a project using struts 2, spring, jpa, maven, etc. But... In my neck of the woods (just north of Kentucky, but not a whole lot more civilized), it is difficult to find trained Java professionals who are fluent in the technologies named above. What is interesting is that when you look at the code, on a per source file basis, it is all very simple (POJO-based development with simple services/implementations). However, conceptually fitting all the pieces together always tends to fall on my shoulders since my team tends to be less experienced in the different libraries. With that being said, I will add that it really is a pleasure to use all of these things together. After a certain point in every project, development time speeds up drastically. Changes are easy and a nice library of components is created that allows for easy additions. All of these things tend to come together once you get past the first two points above. -Wes -- Wes Wannemacher Head Engineer, WanTii, Inc. Need Training? Struts, Spring, Maven, Tomcat... Ask me for a quote! --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: user-unsubscr...@struts.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: user-h...@struts.apache.org
