Frameworks

[atcevik]

Hello,

I am about to develop a J2EE application and having some trouble
choosing the frameworks, some of which I have in mind are

- Spring
- Struts
- Hibernate
- Tapestry
- Openlazslo
- echo2
- Drools

what do you think about them, especially openlazslo and echo2 ? I would
very much like to use flash or ajax on presentation layer, and
openlazslo has fascinated me, but havent been able to find the
integration data about integrating openlazslo to spring and such. I do
not know if I will have trouble, well as tapestry.

Furthermore, I will be glad to hear about the other choices I have
made, any better alternatives, difficulties you have been through in
implementing the ones I think of. I am new to J2EE and any comment will
be very useful.

 

[hilz]

Hello,

I am about to develop a J2EE application and having some trouble
choosing the frameworks, some of which I have in mind are

- Spring
- Struts
- Hibernate
- Tapestry
- Openlazslo
- echo2
- Drools

what do you think about them, especially openlazslo and echo2 ? I would
very much like to use flash or ajax on presentation layer, and
openlazslo has fascinated me, but havent been able to find the
integration data about integrating openlazslo to spring and such. I do
not know if I will have trouble, well as tapestry.

Furthermore, I will be glad to hear about the other choices I have
made, any better alternatives, difficulties you have been through in
implementing the ones I think of. I am new to J2EE and any comment will
be very useful.

You have discounted a very good option from your comparison list which
is JSF.
Whatever you do, stay away from flash (my 2 cent).

 

[atcevik]

I would not bother into going through the stuff if it were action
script or smth such, but if you look at openlazslo, you will see that
it is a servlet that interprets the xml file and renders a flash
presentation layer accordingly, and integration to the domain objects
or the persistence mechanism by the use of xml.

The feedbacks around the net are very positive. Although flash was a
thing to run from in the past, due to it was a designer aimed tool
after all, applets have not been able to acquire what it does, and ajax
is really tough to implement, as client side manipulation through dom
is a nightmare. So, openlazslo seemed like a solution.

Please do tell me if I am missing any points.

 

[Timo Stamm]

I am about to develop a J2EE application and having some trouble
choosing the frameworks, some of which I have in mind are

Hm, these are very different frameworks, and they solve different problems.

- Spring

Application framework with all kinds of tiers that can be used
independantly.

- Struts

A very old web tier.

- Hibernate
ORM.


- Tapestry

Template engine.

- Openlazslo

Complex rich web client platform. While Flash is good for some
applications (especially with graphics), it isn't for lots of others. A
fileupload for example is not possible with Flash (I think the current
beta of the player has this feature, but it is not distributed well
enough). So it really depends on your app...

- echo2

Web tier with lot's of JavaScript and AJAX that only works on a few
browsers.

I think millstone (http://www.millstone.org/) has a similar set of GUI
widgets, but it is much more reliable.

- Drools

Unknown.


There are many other java web frameworks:

http://java-source.net/open-source/web-frameworks


My personal favourite is Wicket:

http://wicket.sourceforge.net/

Good handling of HTML templates, no XML, everything is done in Java,
AJAX support. You have to write complex GUI widgets yourself.


Timo

 

[Marc E]

you might also consider macromedia Flex for the web tier. just a thought.

 

[atcevik]

Thought I should have written clearlyer I am not trying to compare
hibernate to openlazslo or smth. Some of these are the frameworks I
intend to use, and some are just competitives.

I intend to use Spring as the IOC, Hibernate as the orm, drools as the
rules engine. The presentation layer seems to have more than one choice
for me, Openlazslo, tapestry, echo2, struts and more. I do not know if
I will be able to use some of these together, eg. openlazslo and
tapestry.

Regarding jsf, the articles I have read have made me look upon tapestry
instead.

 

[atcevik]

regarding flex, I do not feel comfortable using a product which is not
opensource & free, I would prefer openlazslo in case.

 

[Timo Stamm]

I do not know if
I will be able to use some of these together, eg. openlazslo and
tapestry.

No. OpenLazlo will probably work significantly different than HTML based
web frameworks. I don't think this would integrate well, if at all.

Regarding jsf, the articles I have read have made me look upon tapestry
instead.

Tapestry is a nice component oriented framework. I think Wicket is more
modern and is easier to work with, especially regarding templates.

regarding flex, I do not feel comfortable using a product which is not
opensource & free, I would prefer openlazslo in case.

Flex is not open source, but it's free. HaXe (http://haxe.org/) might be
another alternative.


Timo