David said:
Maybe not but it seems to be the only similar framework backed by Sun
and supported by their RAD tools. See
Which "other approaches" offer a web-based equivalent of Swing that is
more popular or has less overhead than JSF?
I like JSF. I've just been learning it a few months now, and it's very nifty.
It's perhaps a little too powerful. I find it a bit overwhelming at first,
being more accustomed to rolling my own MVC for web apps, or using Struts.
Once I caught on to using faces-config.xml to configure my managed beans,
though, it really took off. I haven't even gotten fancy with lifecycle
management, as might be needed if forwarding to non-JSF pages.
Another nice thing about JSF is that it plays well with both CSS and
Javascript. The former is especially important, IMO. Just about every JSF
tag has attributes for style and client-side event hooks.
This integration has started to open my mind up to a new paradigm for web and
similar apps, neither server-side nor client-side but a synthesis where client
and server coordinate their logic for a fabulous user experience.