Struts (Was Web enablement options (previously private))

From: "David Morris" <David.Morris@plumcreek.com>
> To add to Joe's comments, a lot of the infrastructure is done
> if you are working in a Sevlet environment. We use an open-source
> framework called Struts (http://jakarta.apache.org/struts).

The Struts link branches to a large number of resources.  I reviewed the
FAQ, user's guide, java docs, and followed several of the resource links.

> Struts helps to enforce what Joe is talking about. Struts is designed
> to supply a Model - View - Controller (MVC).

Although I firmly believe in dividing interactive applications into model,
view, and controller components, I'm a little distrustful of frameworks that
"enforce" it.  The interfaces supplied to enforce a particular design often
translate to unforseen restrictions in the implentation of a application
function.  Have you run into that problem with Struts?

> Overall, Struts is lightweight. If you need something more inclusive,
> Expresso would be a good bet. Beyond this, you get into EJBs,
> which simplify some operations, but complicate the overall design.

There seems to be a huge difference between what ILE programmers and Java
programmers consider to be "lightweight".  I think I counted 185 classes in
the java doc.  Most classes exposed numerous constructors, properties, and
methods.  I'd consider Struts to be a "huge" framework.

It looked like there was a great deal of overlap between Struts and the
servlet, JSP, EJB framework already defined by Sun.  How do you decide when
to use a Struts class vs. a standard Java class?

Nathan M. Andelin
www.relational-data.com