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Replies:
17
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Last Post:
Nov 29, 2008 7:29 AM
by: firefight
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Please stop promoting new frameworks and concentrate onJava stack and tool
Posted:
Aug 12, 2007 10:21 AM
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I once learned Java not to “write once and run every where� but to “learn once and apply every where�; that spirit of Java has been gone long long time ago. The whole community has been robbed by shallow developers and shallow experts who doesn’t know any thing better but to offer and promote a new framework every day. The sad part is that the whole community has no choice but to learn some one else stupid framework just because of the marketing hype and fear of not being left out from the herd. The life of most framework span is even shorter than the lifecycle of a decent project; and it give us nothing but yet another fail project with a bad name of Java being too complex. In reality the Java stack framework is the most beautiful framework I have ever seen; and guess what to finish my project I want my Java developers to be an expert of Java stack instead of a framework developed in one night by a developer whose whole experience of programming consisted of “4 years� of which 2 years of experience are in his/her Master thesis program:-) I know we can’t stop people developing new frameworks and promoting it for the advantages of their own hidden agenda; but I would request the whole Java community to at least be skeptical on the new framework, avoiding unnecessary complexity, and keep concentrating on the Java stack and development of good tools.
If nothing please learn from Microsoft; just think how easily they transitioned a vast majority of VB developers into the complex model of ASP.NET with out any sweat; VS the experienced server side Java developers still struggling after 4 years about how to write JSF with many competing implementation with their own niche and extensions (not to mention that even after so many years JSF sucks VS Web forms due to it’s unnecessary complexity, again thanks for so called Java experts who hijacked the whole community; a new debate that I don’t want to spawn here) The reason Microsoft is so successful is because they don’t offer a new framework every day; instead their developers learn once and apply it every where (at least on Windows:-)); it is so ironic they fulfilled the dream of “learn once and apply every where� once promised by Java.
RJ.
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Re: Please stop promoting new frameworks and concentrate onJava stack and t
Posted:
Aug 13, 2007 6:26 AM
in response to: rjilani
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I really don't understand the moaning of some people about "too many frameworks". As opposed to the MS-universe, there choices in Javaland, which is a good thing. Decent developers pick the most appropriate technology and won't follow a marketing-hyped herd. We are all big boys and girls, aren't we?
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Re: Please stop promoting new frameworks and concentrate onJava stack and t
Posted:
Aug 13, 2007 8:42 AM
in response to: scotty69
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Choice is good, but there is a "too many choices" problem. If you pick the "most appropriate", but unpopular tech for your project, you won't be able to find developers who're experienced with it, for example.
OTOH, Struts 1.x is not among the best frameworks, but it does have a large developer base.
If you were to evaluate all existing Web frameworks for Java, for instance, you'd probably still be evaluating them by the time you're supposed to deliver results.
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Re: Please stop promoting new frameworks and concentrate onJava stack and t
Posted:
Aug 13, 2007 10:50 AM
in response to: dserodio
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The experience of the developers influences the technology to choose. You will certainly stick to Struts if you've got a bunch of seasoned Struts developers and no JSF/Tapestry/GWT/whatever developers. The vast variety of different web frameworks does not exist because some evil guys want to confuse you. They simply exist because people are intensely trying to find new ways to tackle old and yet unresolved problems.
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Re: Please stop promoting new frameworks and concentrate onJava stack and t
Posted:
Aug 13, 2007 10:56 AM
in response to: scotty69
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I think it's more of a NIH syndrome than a legitimate "trying to find new ways to tackle old and yet unresolved problems.".
If you don't like something, why not improve on it, instead of reinventing the wheel yet again?
The Struts 2 / WebWork merger, for instance, has been the best possible outcome for both Struts and WebWork users and developers.
If only people's egos made this kind of decision easier...
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Re: Please stop promoting new frameworks and concentrate onJava stack and t
Posted:
Aug 13, 2007 1:45 PM
in response to: scotty69
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> They simply exist because people are
> intensely trying to find new ways to tackle old and
> yet unresolved problems.
I thought it was because none of the existing "web frameworks" allow you to build the Rich applications that users really want to use. Therefore, more "web frameworks" spring up every few months to try and tackle problems solved by Desktop developers a decade or more ago. Maybe I'm over simplifying it, though.
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Re: Please stop promoting new frameworks and concentrate onJava stack and t
Posted:
Aug 13, 2007 7:27 PM
in response to: scotty69
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Unfortunately, that's true. In my opinion, the wasted time was driven by the big vendors. Afterall, IBM, Oracle, BEA, etc. can't make much money from IDE licenses. However, if you MUST license an app server to deploy an "application", well now you're talking big bucks. I mean all of us work for a big Internet company like Google, right? 
Is it really so bumpy, though? On my Mac or Windows PC, a lot of the software is deployed via web with the installer automatically running after downloading. That makes it a no-brainer to install desktop apps. We use Java Webstart at work for our apps, so deployment is a breeze to install and automatically update. This also makes maintaining those apps a breeze since I only have to troubleshoot the client and the communication with the server. No bickering with admins telling me my app is broken with me having no visibility to the app server logs. Sometimes its better to just keep things simple. Maybe that's what RJ is complaining about.... what ever happened to the KISS principal? It seems more relavent now that all projects are needed to be done yesterday. I mean do we really need to orchestrate HTML, CSS, XML, Javascript, JSON, Struts, JSF, Hibernate, JPA, Java, EL, <insert framework here>, etc. to piece together a usable application that the users actually want? Somehow we did it with a lot less mess and a lot faster delivery a decade ago. Does anyone really believe that's "progress"?
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Re: Please stop promoting new frameworks and concentrate onJava stack and t
Posted:
Aug 13, 2007 11:33 AM
in response to: scotty69
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The curse of choice is confusion and doubt.
The first choice is choosing between MS .NET and Java at all. If you choose MS, you're done. Choosing MS chooses the framework as well (in most cases).
But once you choose Java at all, you then have to pick a framework to leverage, of which there are just multitudes.
If you're new to the space, this is a DAUNTING task, trying to choose a framework, since every framework has their supporters and detractors, and "helpful" folks will happily damn your decision when you come up with some kind of question.
This is actually changing a bit. With Sun pushing NetBeans (hard I might add), and the fact that it comes set up to work directly with JSF and it's tools, that gives JSF a bit of an edge to new adopters.
JSF is in the standard, it's got decent tooling, and works "out of the box" with the JEE download and NetBeans.
Another example is the difference between NetBeans and Eclipse. NetBeans comes with a Bunch of Stuff all bundled, configured, and ready to go for a good 'out of box' exprience.
The Eclipse world is much more dynamic, lots of plugins, plugins with overlapping functionality and quality, different Eclipse "bundles", etc.
Eclipse has a lot of choice compared to NetBeans.
But choice can be very demanding. It means you may have to make decisions on parts you weren't even thinking about, or have no knowledge of. So, for novices, choice is not necessarily a good thing while they're still learning the fundamentals.
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Re: Please stop promoting new frameworks and concentrate onJava stack and t
Posted:
Aug 13, 2007 11:48 AM
in response to: whartung
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As someone who's chosen Java over Microsoft 7 years ago (there was no .NET then), I need to say that sometimes I do envy my MS-addicted colleagues.
Nowadays, the answer to "how do you do X in Java" always starts with "it depends".
There must be a sweet spot between the "no choices" and the "too many choices".
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Re: Please stop promoting new frameworks and concentrate onJava stack and t
Posted:
Aug 13, 2007 12:07 PM
in response to: dserodio
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Yea. Makes it "easy".
A while back I was looking for web cam for my Mac. I go to the local Computer Super Store and there are, of course, several different cameras. And it was all bewildering, mostly as I wasn't sure what would or wouldn't work with my Mac for iChat, and the boxes were of little help.
I basically gave up, went to the Apple Store, told the guy at the desk "I need a web cam for my Mac Pro that works with iChat", and he walked out a few minutes later, box in hand.
Here I had a choice of one. Maybe there were others in the back, different models, I don't know. But it was certainly easier to make this choice here than back at the super store. Running the devices through the "Apple Filter" simplified the process immensely.
To be sure, there is nothing "wrong" with .NET. It works, it will implement your application, and I don't know if .NET in itself made any project fail. There are very valid reasons to not choose .NET, but whether you do or not, it's a capable and well supported system.
In fact, I do wish the Java frameworks had some of the support that .NET has. For example, .NET had some very good starter pack of non trivial applications that met basic needs (like a simple portal, for example). These were great showcases of idioms and patterns that are usable in all sorts of applications, but more robust and complete that the plethora of "hello world" and "wizard generated" throwaway demos that we get in the Java world.
I think Sun should do more things like that with JSF and NetBeans to let users get up to speed faster. For example, a simple distribution application with Orders, and Header/Detail entry screens, a popup picker, and some simple reports. Something that does "most everything" a common, back office application may want to do, with only the table names changed to protect the innocent. Novice programmers can cut and paste their way to glory to get out the basic apps that every business wants while at the same time learning their craft better.
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Re: Please stop promoting new frameworks and concentrate onJava stack and t
Posted:
Aug 13, 2007 12:07 PM
in response to: scotty69
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Scotty I guessed you missed the whole point. It's not like an evil guy deceiving us; neither it is a matter of choosing the right frame work; yes, big guys and girls like us can do that; what excites you to use hibernate already excited many of us using Toplink years and years ago:-) but that is not the point; remember "learn once apply every where". If you have a bunch of young enthusiastic working for you (I know one of them is going to come up with a new framework soon:-); you want them to be productive; and the only way they can be productive if they concentrate on 1 or 2 frameworks and ideally it would be a *standard* Java stack. Please concentrate on *standard* and that is the jist of my message. Do you remember the big guys taught us that in order to be productive you categorize the role of developers in Tiers (GUI, middleware and database); hope your J2EE spec still says that(I haven't read it since many years:-); there was a reason for that; to make people productive by concentrating to only one thing for a period of time. why don't they use the same analogy when it come to framework?
Don't get me wrong, evolution is a necessity and so do the new frameworks; but what we are seeing right now is nothing but madness; and we should stop it at some point.
RJ
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Re: Please stop promoting new frameworks and concentrate onJava stack and t
Posted:
Aug 13, 2007 2:01 PM
in response to: rjilani
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Nice to meet another Toplink veteran! Back in 1998, I had the displeasing task to choose a persistence technology for a large project involving developer teams in four different countries. At this time, a phletora of O/R-tools was popping up at a bewildering pace, and nobody knew which one would stand the test of time. We gave Toplink a shot, and the hardest part was to convince our partners to digg deep into an unfamiliar "non-standard" technology (which was plain JDBC at this time, the whole O/R-thingy was still kind of avant-garde). It took years until a new "standard" (JPA) was established, heavily influenced by technologies starting as sourceforge-underdogs (Hibernate).
Sorry for getting melancholic: Just a of couple years ago, in the pre-EJB-time, it was unclear which remoting technology would be the winner in the middleware grounds, and legions of junior developers like me were sent to the CORBA-slaughter without mercy.
I'm in web-development for the last decade now, hacking Servlets, JSPs, home-grown "frameworks", then Struts, JSF, and nowadays GWT and other toys, but I have no idea with which framework I'll do my job in a couple of years: perhaps an evolved JSF, perhaps a GWT-like toolkit, perhaps something completely different...
I understand your discomfort, but the current situation is not madness. Software development has always been a mess, and the situation will not improve in the next years.
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Re: Please stop promoting new frameworks and concentrate onJava stack and t
Posted:
Aug 13, 2007 3:37 PM
in response to: scotty69
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My friend with all due respect there is a big difference between mess and stupidity. Even though Software development is mess it doesn't mean learning a new framework all the time; what it means is producing a piece of software that works; and it better be ready in x amount of time. But guess what you and me have been doing since long long time; spending more time learning a new framework instead of spending that time to build a quality product.
Besides that isn't software engineering is 80% maintenance and 20% development, I guess learning a new framework every day takes it tool and we even forget the basics:-) I will settle with the frameworks when we strike that balance.
nice talking to you; have a nice day.
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Re: Please stop promoting new frameworks and concentrate onJava stack and t
Posted:
Aug 13, 2007 10:27 PM
in response to: scotty69
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as said, there's a point in which it gets to be too much of a good thing.
Though it's slowing down a bit and there's some consolidation there was a time not too long ago when a new web framework for Java was released somewhere just about every day.
The differences were often minimal, the bugs plenty. Had those people joined forces with an existing project rather than go their own way they could have had the same thing they coded themselves in the context of that project instead, making it better for everyone.
Of course some concepts are irreconcilable with any existing "framework" and do warrant their own project.
Things like Struts and Spring are too different at heart, shouldn't be one product.
Just as an example, I've myself coded 3 web frameworks over the last decade. The first predated any of the existing frameworks by several years, so there was nothing else out there to use.
The second I was hired to maintain that I'd not written myself, so again not my decision (I'd have chosen to use an existing framework instead).
The third I wrote because all the existing ones out there were massive overkill for what I had in mind. Had something like Spring MVC existed at the time and I'd been aware of it I'd have used that instead.
None of them were ever released publicly, only for internal use in organisations I worked in.
For each I initiated development there were valid reasons, but most open source "frameworks" seem to be someone's hobby pet project released in a bout of either desperation because the author is stuck and needs help or vanity to have their names in the news for a while.
So yes, there are too many frameworks. But I do see the industry consolidating somewhat, the chaff being separated from the wheat and most of the hobby projects slowly fading into the gloom of abandonment in the deeper crevices and caverns of sourceforge where they'll amaze future digital archeologists as to how primitive Java Man could have created such things and survived.
It is now for us to select those few that are worthy of survival and elevate them to the next level.
If new ones appear (and they will, and should) those should be judged on merit and promise, neither dismissed out of hand as incomplete or superfluous nor instantly hyped into greatness only to fall from grace just as quickly when they turn out not to be quite there yet.
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Re: Please stop promoting new frameworks and concentrate onJava stack and t
Posted:
Aug 13, 2007 9:55 PM
in response to: rjilani
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rjilani, well said! Well said... Thank you.
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Re: Please stop promoting new frameworks and concentrate onJava stack and t
Posted:
Aug 14, 2007 1:58 AM
in response to: rjilani
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There is a very good article "Exploring Ajax Runtime Offerings". It is a "must read" article showing several AJAX frameworks from a "style of programming" point of view.
Diversity is amazing if it *delivers* several styles of coding and programming:
* Custom tags/declarative programming (like in JSF) or programmatic/Java based view development (Echo2, GWT) or pure HTML based templates + Java view logic (Wicket)
* Client/JavaScript (GWT, DWR) or Server/Java centric (JSF, Echo2, Wicket, GWT too)
* Component based (most of modern frameworks): Desktop/Swing emulators (Echo2), or HTML centric components (GWT, JSF, Wicket)
* Classic navigation (Struts, JSF, Wicket) or AJAX (JSF enriched, Wicket enriched, GWT, Echo2)
Of course there are many more frameworks but most of them fit into this classification, for instance Wings and WebCream are similar to Echo2 (conceptually) because they are desktop emulators (heavily "pixel based"), Tapestry approach is similar to Wicket (pure HTML templates) etc. Of course sometimes some frameworks are commercial, previous was a architecture point of view.
Pick up your preferred framework based on your "style" or "taste".
More "styles" and frameworks upcoming sure 
Of course there is a clear standard, JSF, select it if you want to remain in the official "Java stack", but sometimes the small guys beat the big guys like it took place with JDO/Hibernate vs EJB
Jose M. Arranz
JNIEasy C/C++ in Java without JNI
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Re: Please stop promoting new frameworks and concentrate onJava stack and tool
Posted:
Nov 29, 2008 7:29 AM
in response to: rjilani
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At some point you have to just make a decision about what frameworks to use and start getting the work done. As a technical manager, I think about a more important things then for example, just whether this framework has a cleaner way to implement the front end. It's much more important that it be well supported by developers, have a rich eco-system (3rd party tools), a nice selection of books available, and experts available for hire.
This is exactly why Struts 1 has been so popular--because managers know that having a lot of support for the tool you're basing your applications architecture on is essential to the projects success.
It's would be much better for the Java community if it focused on just a few non-competing frameworks, let the competitors whither (sorry folks), and stop, for love of g*d , promoting new frameworks.
I think the problem of new frameworks being created all the time stems from developers ego's wanting a sense of accomplishment. Imagine what great things we could accomplish if this energy was directed in just few non-competing products and add-ons to those products?
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