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20031118 Tuesday November 18, 2003

Yet Another Web Application Framework: Shocks From watching the struts-dev mailing list, I discovered a new Servlet Framework called Shocks. The thing that interests me about this framework is that the author looked extensively at Struts and WebWork both before creating it. It's feature-set sounds nice too: 

It has an aspect-oriented workflow engine that can add crosscutting
system logic (like form processing, L10N, security, logging, etc) dynamically at
runtime (without having to mess around with the bytecode).  It can trade actions
across classloader boundaries, enabling web applications to span across multiple
.WAR files.  This allows users to drop in a new .WAR with new metadata and new
actions, which updates the application workflow at runtime across all modules in
the application namespace.  It handles workflow versioning and version rollback
(in case you make changes you come to regret).  It does instance pooling of all
components and sequences.  Every aspect of the system can be managed with JMX at
runtime.

Sounds like Spring, eh? Yes, says the author.

I think there are appreciable differences that have yet to be realized between 
the two (I haven't read their code at all), but definitely a lot of conceptual 
crossover.

I would think that introducing a new framework into the mix (and convincing folks to use it) must be pretty tough at this point, unless you create an IDE to go with it or introduce it in a book. BTW, did you know you can use Tiles with Spring. Posted in Java at Nov 18 2003, 05:28:45 AM MST 2 Comments

Comments:

Whoa! Increment my frameworks list by 1, so now there are 35 J2EE web frameworks! One of my favorite features in WebWork2 is by far the concept of Interceptors which are basically simple AOP. I just recently attended a talk on AOP by Ron Bodkin at nofluffjuststuff and I really see the power in it. Having said that IF this framework is lighter and easier to use then Spring and Struts then it sounds like it might have a chance (although it isn't difficult to be easier than Struts ;)

Posted by Kris Thompson on November 18, 2003 at 09:33 AM MST #

I'm in the process of moving from Struts to Spring for the web MVC-side of things, and I must say I'm actually finiding Spring more work than Struts, although no-doubt this is down to teething troubles right now. As for Yet Another Framework, I think it just goes to proove that this is a problem that hasn't yet been solved, or has been solved by one of the myriad frameworks out there and no-one has noticed yet. 35 J2EE frameworks right now? I suspect that given the bredth of the problem space there is perhaps room for a few, but I think you'll find many of these frameowrks abandoned overtime, with the developers moving over to their framework of choice - it will be interesting to see who wins. I can't see Struts going anywhere any time soon due to its massive user base (not to mention huge similarities with the JSF spec), but thats not to say it will be around forever.

Posted by Sam Newman on November 20, 2003 at 04:59 PM MST #

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Matt Raible is a Web Architecture Consultant specializing in open source frameworks.
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