鐵手劍譜

Web Frameworks Shootout

Editor’s Note: This is contributed content, and doesn’t always reflect TSS’ neutrality in such matters. TSS is made up of human editors, of course, and as such, we have biases, but we’d not express them quite this way, nor are we willing to say exactly what those biases are – and no, they’re not often what you might suspect. Let’s leave it at “each framework has its strengths and weaknesses, and each is appropriate for various uses. Thus, we’d be unwilling to stand behind any one framework over another, without detailed and specific requirements for a given implementation.

One of the more interesting talks at Wednesday's JavaONE was the Web Frameworks Shootout hosted on the Esplande level of the Moscone center.  We’ll begin our coverage of this event with an overview of the shoot-out contenders and format.  We will then provide a brief description of the distinguishing points of each framework, followed by a collection of the top quotes and one-liners from the shoot-out.  Finally, we’ll conclude by presenting you with TheServerside.com's own scorecard of how each of the web frameworks faired in the shootout, proclaiming our winners for "Best Business Case" and "Best Technical Case".

The Shoot-Out Contenders:

Frameworks Present:
JavaServer Faces, championed by Ed Burns
Webwork, championed by Jason Carreira
Shale, championed by David Geary
Tapestry, championed by Howard Lewis Ship
Wicket, championed by Eelco Hillenius

Frameworks Conspicuously Absent:
Struts 1.x
SpringMVC
Ruby on Rails

The Shoot-Out Format:

Round 1: Each contender gets 3 minutes to introduce their framework.

Round 2: Questions from the moderator.

Round 3: Questions from the audience.

The Fight Bell: The moderator, Kevin Osborn, controls a fight-bell.  The fight-bell is rung for any “hits below the belt ” or when a contender has used their allowed amount of time.                                                                                                        

Our Commentary:

One of the major trends we noticed during this shootout was the intense focus on components.  Each framework introduced its own flavor of how a web component should work.  The message to the audience is that reusable web components are all the rage… the major point of contention now is what these components should look like.  We couldn’t help notice, however, that Struts was conspicuously missing.  Still, even while Struts wasn’t formally represented, it was clear all represented frameworks were struggling to free themselves from Struts’ shadow, highlighting how they were “different” and “better”.  While web-framework technology may be advancing and leaving Struts behind, Struts is still the present incumbent as the tried and true framework with thousands of successful projects under its belt.  We couldn’t help noticing that Struts doesn’t include this idea of a web component, so for developers looking for reasons to consider these other frameworks, understanding the idea of a web component is a good place to start.

Framework Overviews (Round 1)

JavaServer Faces (JSF)

• Technical Features
  • First class UI component and event model （其實算起來大家還要感謝Apple的了）
  • POJO Dependency Injection (aka Inversion of Control) （最近流行，有什么辦法呢？就像SARS一樣）
  • Client device independence
  • Use with or without tools
  • Externalized Navigation (similar to Struts Navigation)
  • Massively Extensible (witness Shale)
  • Completely Integratable (witness JSF integrated with Spring)
  • Localizable and accessible
• Market/Business Distinctions
• Widespread Adoption, including Sun, Oracle, IBM, BEA, Apache, EDS （大腕支持是好，可是代價也不小阿。OS的愛好者們不喜歡）
• Part of J2EE 5.0 （正宗！標準）
• Large 3rd party component market (iLog, Business Objects, Oracle, Sun, IBM) (希望看到和.net組件一樣火爆的場面)
• Industry leading tools (Sun Java Studio, Oracle JDeveloper, IBM WSAD, NitroX plugin for Eclipse, Exadel Studio)
• Many Books Available
• 3 pages of JSF jobs on Monster (Author’s Note: Compare this to the dozens of pages of Struts jobs on Monster)

Webwork

• Core Values
  • Simplicity
  • Testability （管這兩條就值得，如今TDD也流行，沒辦法，他們總希望程序員能搞定一切！） 
  • Maintainability
  • Extensibility
• View Technology agnostic, supporting JSP, Velocity, and other view technologies （這和Spring有的一拼）
• Maps HTTP request to a logical (interceptable) action （所以也可以不僅僅針對HTTP了，Command而已嘛）
• Simple components via the hierarchical MVC and template mechanisms

Shale

• A framework built on JSF technology and Jakarta  （更上一層樓了，JSF雖好，但我吸取了Struts和Jarkarta項目的多年功力，你也沒辦法）
• A proposal for Struts 2.0 (TSS Editor’s Note: Last we checked, there is quite a bit of uncertainty as to whether Shale will actually become Struts 2.0.) （Shale原本計劃成為Struts2德，可是....,她和JSF而且兩者都是同一個人打造的了）
• A Struts sub-project （還在孵化培育中，所以..........看上去很美）
• No direct connection with Struts Classic (ie Struts 1.x)  （和Struts不是一回事哦）
• Described as JSF++:  “JSF 1.0 didn’t include everything we wanted to add due to time.  So Shale attempts to add it.  Features like client-side validation, AJAX, etc… are slated for JSF 2.0.  Meanwhile, Shale is a proving ground for those ideas.” （JSF++有意思，那么下一版本的JSF又該如何？）
• Shale Features:
  • Web Flow
  • Ajax
  • Spring and Tiles Integration （Tiles應該很快會獨立了）
  • Client and Server-side Validation  （使用Commons Validator？）
  • Tapestry-like views and parameterized Subtree   （互相學習阿）
  • Utilities: Back-Button abuse, （令人頭痛的同步問題）file-uploads, JNDI API
• Shale’s Extension Points
  • ShalePropertyResolver
  • ShaleVariableResolver
  • DialogNavigationHandler
  • ShaleViewHandler
  • TilesViewHandler
• “If you know nothing about JSF itself, JSF is very, very extensible.” 

Tapestry

• Core Values:
  • Simplicity - web applications shouldn't be rocket science!
  • Consistency - what works in pages should work in components. What works in small applications should work in large applications. Different developers should find similar solutions to similar problems. （組件，又是組件。有人問，什么是組件？？我也不知道，但是在軟件開發中，組件無處不在！呵呵）
  • Efficiency - applications should be performant and scalable
  • Feedback - when things go wrong, the framework should not get in the way; in fact, it should provide useful diagnostics
• Tools:
  • Does not require the use of tools
  • Let you use the design tools you already know.
• New Features in Tapestry 4.0 (subset):
  • Annotations Support （也是很Fancy的東西）
  • Really excellent integration
  • Much more flexibility in terms of how you manage serverside state.  Very efficient about what it stores in the session, if anything at all.
  • Portlets Support
• Extensibility:
  • Over 180 extension points （老大，是不是多了點）
  • Built around Component Object Model with many layers
  • Terrific ability to override, change, and customize
  • Great support for component libraries which are open source and available. （這個庫由你一家操辦，力量小了吧）
• "Tapestry is a predecessor, almost a research project, for some of the other frameworks"

Wicket

• Wicket is the new kid on the block.
• "Wicket is Easy, Wicket is Elegant", Wicket is Powerful." （怎么聽都象“今年我家不收禮............”）
• Easy to Use:
  • Simple, Consistent, Obvious
  • Reusable Component (都想這樣)
  • Non-Intrusive （這點很重要，集成嘛。。。）
  • Safe
  • Efficient/Scalable

Noteworthy Quotes:

Editors Note: The Q&A rounds were a bit like a peanut gallery where it was often difficult to tell which contender said which cheap-shot.  Furthermore, there was as much smack talk as there was bonafide technical commentary.  Short of who said what, what was most telling during this round was the overall interplay.  In an effort to capture this interplay without making our contenders feel their comments were misattributed, we’ve included a collection of quotes overheard during the round without necessarily attributing them to their origin.

• "Everybody is knows that JSF is much better than Struts.  Meanwhile JSF is Neck and Neck with Tapestry"
• "Struts is old school, so get over it."   （培養了很多人，也培養了很多框架哦，而且用戶數量也還在急劇增長，基數也大）
• "If you need a tool like that, your framework is probably too complex."
• "You can talk about tools, but you can't make people use them."
• "If you want to save your Struts code-base, then JSF is the way to go." （的確二者集成比較容易）
• “It's the fact you can extend your framework in a standard way and create an artifact that can extend this piece of functionality.  You can't really do that in Struts or Webwork.”  To which someone replied that you don’t need a fancy event model to obtain reuse in a web app.（擴展性，）

Our Scorecard

TSS did its best to keep score during the shoot-out.  We decided to score each of the frameworks in a 5-point scale in two separate categories:

• Technical Features
• Business Case