Re: Struts

Struts is dead.

No, it isn't.  It wants to go for a walk.  Some people want to beat it over the 
head, but it doesn't want to go on the cart.

They are taking a new technology and calling it Struts 2.  It's not a
revision like RPG IV or even a new version like RPG /free.  It's a new
product.  Migration from Struts 1 is not particularly easy, especially the
JSPs.

No, they're not.  If they were, it would have been out last November when the 
announcement was made.  No, they're taking a new technology and making it into 
a new Struts because it matched up nicely with their roadmap.  It makes use of 
common services, including the Tag Libraries and Velocity templates (which 
technically no longer require Struts).  

So, regardless of what anyone says, your Struts 1 applications are now
officially outmoded.  

This is an odd comment coming from someone in the iSeries development 
community.  From an iSeries developer, you'd expect the (far more pragmatic) 
view of "it's not outmoded until it stops working or I can't maintain it 
anymore."

Struts 1 has an upgrade path to Struts 2.  It does not have an upgrade path to 
Tapestry, Cocoon, WebWork, Stripes, JSF, Wicket, etc. 

If I'm looking for some sort of consistency in the
Open Source world (not easy to find) then I'd probably stick with JSF.

The intention of several of the Struts core team is to submit the Struts 2 
codebase as the starting point for a JSR for Action-based frameworks.  It will 
likely succeed, because Action-based frameworks allow for better handling of 
complex controller logic.  It would also formalize a way to integrate JSF and 
Struts in a way that will likely appeal to the mountain of existing Struts 
shops.

The bottom line is that Struts is the most widely used framework by some of 
IBM's most important customers (financial institutions), and the support should 
be updated to the latest versions.  It'd sure make WebFacing less painful to 
customize.