Type Conversion & Web Development

[James Thornton]

I haven't normally used Java for Web development, but I may be using
it for an upcoming project. In developing a Java Web application, I
assume that one would spend a significant amount of time dealing with
type conversions from HTML forms to Java, from Java to SQL, from SQL
back to Java, and from Java back to HTML.

Is there a clean/best practice for dealing with type conversion that
would avoid all of this?

Also, what is the "best" templating system these days?

 

[Leo Gaggl]

James,

Check out the Apache Jakarta project. It has some widely accepted
frameworks for Java web development.

Velocity seems to be one of the most popular templating engines for Java
but there are plenty of others such as Webmacro. Just search google for
list.
http://jakarta.apache.org/velocity/

I am using Turbine as the framework for my current project - they have a
very useful list of common services and I like the way you can implement
your own services into the framework. You can use Velocity for
templating or other template engines. The downside is that Turbine does
seem to be that actively developed - compared to Struts.
http://jakarta.apache.org/turbine/

Another framework is Jakarta Struts - very widely used and less of a
learning curve compared to Turbine.
http://jakarta.apache.org/struts/


HTH,

 

[hiwa]

I haven't normally used Java for Web development, but I may be using
it for an upcoming project. In developing a Java Web application, I
assume that one would spend a significant amount of time dealing with
type conversions from HTML forms to Java, from Java to SQL, from SQL
back to Java, and from Java back to HTML.

Is there a clean/best practice for dealing with type conversion that
would avoid all of this?

Also, what is the "best" templating system these days?

I recommend JavaServer Faces althogh Jakarta Struts may offer some
conversion facilities.
http://java.sun.com/j2ee/javaserverfaces/download.html