Raible Designs

Tuesday September 06, 2005

Stripes Greg Hinkle writes about a new JDK 5-only Java web framework called Stripes.

Stripes is a presentation framework for building web applications using the latest Java technologies. The main driver behind Stripes is that web application development in Java is just too much work! It seems like every existing framework requires gobs of configuration. Struts is pretty feature-light and has some serious architectural issues. Others, like WebWork 2 and Spring-MVC are much better, but still require a lot of configuration, and seem to require you to learn a whole new language just to get started.

I dig the fact that someone is trying to create a web framework that requires less configuration. It's also very cool that they've released it as 1.0 (rather than 0.1 as many OS projects do) and it also seems to be well documented. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like there's any support for Spring or dependency injection.

Personally, I don't mind the configuration required by WebWork or Spring MVC - but then again, I use AppFuse and tend to generate most of the configuration code using AppGen. Even so, it would be nice to get away from the configuration requirement. Hopefully more framework authors will find ways to reduce or even eliminate the XML hell we have in Java web frameworks. Kudos to the Tapestry developers for doing this in their 4.0 release.

I like the convention over configuration that Rails uses. It's this same mantra that I've been trying to develop AppFuse with for the past few years. The problem with Java web frameworks is developers want configuration choices - even if they never bother to use them. Posted in Java at Sep 06 2005, 09:56:41 PM MDT 6 Comments

I Survived I'm happy to say I survived the long weekend with Abbie and Jack. Not only that, but we had a lot of fun too. We managed to do some hiking, fishing and even pitched a tent in the backyard for a few hours. Unfortunately, the local Safeway was sold out of marshmallows, so we didn't start a campfire. Highlights of the weekend included dinner at Benihana and riding the Georgetown Loop Railroad. Abbie and I took a ride on it last year, and it was just as much fun this time.

Above all else, I got to know my kids a little bit better this weekend. They're truly special people and were a blast to hang out with. I feel like the luckiest Dad in the world right now. Posted in General at Sep 06 2005, 09:06:18 PM MDT 2 Comments