Raible Designs

Comparing JVM Web Frameworks Presentation

Early this morning, I assembled a Comparing JVM Web Frameworks presentation in preparation for my talk tomorrow at ApacheCon. As mentioned on Monday, this presentation compares Flex, Grails, GWT, Seam, Struts 2 and Wicket. While I think this presentation would be fun to deliver, I don't believe it has as much meat as the original talk I was planning to give. My original talk compares JSF, Spring MVC, Stripes, Struts 2, Tapestry and Wicket. Since I've used all these frameworks, I'm able to compare them more on their technical features. Since I haven't used Flex, GWT or Seam, there was no way for me to 1) try them all before tomorrow and 2) do a thorough analysis of how well they each handle my desired features.

Since the abstract on ApacheCon's website mentions my original presentation, I don't want to yank out the carpet and present the second without asking. So my plan is to ask the audience which one they'd rather hear and continue from there. I've updated both presentations with the latest statistics and uploaded them for your review. For those of you who've used these frameworks, I'd be interested to hear how accurate you think my Pros and Cons section is. If you know of better pros or cons, please let me know and I'll adjust as needed.

• Comparing JSF, Spring MVC, Stripes, Struts 2, Tapestry and Wicket
• Comparing Flex, Grails, GWT, Seam, Struts 2 and Wicket

While creating the 2nd presentation, I found a couple things that surprised me. The first is how popular Flex is - not only in job listings, but also in skilled developers and mailing list traffic. Below is a graph that shows how there aren't many jobs for most of the frameworks, but there's lots for Flex.

The following graph illustrates while I chose to use Flex instead of OpenLaszlo as the Flash framework. OpenLaszlo has a much smaller community than Flex.

The second thing that was surprising is Seam doesn't have a logo! How does it ever expect to become a popular open source project without a logo?! It's amazing they've made it this far without having this essential feature. To motivate the creation of a Seam logo, I'm using the following butt-ugly logo in my presentation (found here). Hopefully something better comes along before I deliver my talk tomorrow.

Update: Monday's post started an interesting thread on Stripes' mailing list. Also, I really like Spring MVC's new annotation support. It'd be nice to see it go a step further and use defaults (like ControllerClassNameHandlerMapping + subpackage support) and only require annotations to override the defaults. IMO, Stripes, Spring MVC and Struts 2 are all excellent choices if a request-based framework provides the best architecture for your application.

Update 2: Comparing Flex, Grails, GWT, Seam, Struts 2 and Wicket seems to gave gained a lot of interest (and support) in the blogosphere. Because of this, I'm considering submitting it as a JavaOne talk. If I were to do this, how would you like to see this presentation changed and improved?

Update 3: I received the following Seam logo via e-mail. Thanks Christian!

Update 4: I've updated the Dice.com graph to include "Java" with every search term. To understand the comments on this entry, you might want to view the previous graph.

Update 5: This presentation was posted to the Wicket User mailing list. I followed up asking users to post the pros and cons of Wicket. Now there's a lengthy thread on Wicket's Pros and Cons. Good stuff.

Comparing Web Frameworks: Time for a Change?

I first came up with the idea to do a "Comparing Web Frameworks" talk in 2004. I submitted a talk to ApacheCon and it got accepted. From there, I outlined, created sample apps and practiced this talk before ApacheCon. Believe it or not, that was my first time speaking in front of a large audience.

Historical note: October 2004 was a pretty cool month - I discovered Rails and Roller had a 1.0 release candidate.

When I created the presentation, it was in large part due to all the WebWork and Tapestry folks harassing me on this very blog. I started using Struts in June 2001 (the same month 1.0 was released) and had used it successfully on many projects. Part of the reason this blog became so popular was I posted lots of tips and tricks that I learned about Struts (and its related project) while using it. After a while, the noise became too heavy to ignore it - especially after I'd tried Spring MVC. So in an effort to learn more about the the other frameworks, I submitted a talk and forced myself to learn them. It seems to have worked out pretty well.

With that being said, I think it's time for a change. The reason I originally wrote this was to educate developers on how the top Java web frameworks differed and encourage developers to try more than one. A while later, I realized there's different tools for different jobs and it's not a one-size-fits-all web framework world. It's not a component vs. request-based framework world either. There's lots of options now. When I've delivered this talk earlier this year, I've always felt like I've left quite a few frameworks out. The solution could be to add more and more frameworks. However, I don't think that's a good idea. The talk is already difficult to squeeze into 90 minutes and it's unlikely that adding more frameworks is going to help.

The change I'd like to do is to reduce the number of frameworks down to (what I consider) the top web frameworks for deploying to the JVM. What are those frameworks? IMHO, they are as follows, in no particular order:

• GWT-Ext
• Wicket
• Grails
• Flex/OpenLaszlo
• Seam
• Struts 2

The RIFE, Tapestry and ZK folks can start bitching now. Sorry - less frameworks make for a more interesting talk. Maybe I'll add you in the future and I can ask the audience which ones they want compared then we can choose four and go from there. Why don't I mention Spring MVC? Because I think Struts 2 is easier to learn and be productive with and I also like it's more open and active community. I've written applications with both and I like Struts 2 better. As for Flex vs. OpenLaszlo, I'm somewhat torn. It seems like learning Flex is going to be better for your career, but it's likely useless without the Flex Builder - which is not open source. However, at $250, it's likely worth its price. I know the Picnik folks used Flex for their UI - I wonder how much they used Flex Builder in the process?

What do you think? Are these the top web frameworks for JVM deployment today? The next time I give this talk is this Thursday at ApacheCon. I may try to re-write my talk and then give the audience a choice of old vs. new. The downside of doing the new talk is I won't have time to write apps with GWT, Flex or Seam. Anyone care to post their top three pros and cons for any of these frameworks?

Introducing the Cadillac named Snow White

Today I completed something I've been hoping to do for a couple months now - I bought a new car! I started looking a few weeks ago and today I let Janet the Used Car Sales Lady talk me into buying a 2004 Cadillac Escalade. I was planning on buying a used Yukon, but took a fully-loaded one for a test-drive this morning and found it to be sluggish and kind of a rough ride. Since I like the look of the Escalade, I decided to test-drive one of those this afternoon. 2 hours later, I'd made a screaming deal that I couldn't pass up. I wanted the shorter SUV, but ended up with the longer one. Oh well, I went from a car to an SUV to get more room so I don't feel too bad.

The main reason I wanted to get an SUV (and a big one at that) was because I've found my Honda Accord to be too small to cart the kids around in. While it works, it's tough to pack any sort of gear (bikes, skis, etc.) with us. I know, I could have boughten a roof rack and taken my 12" subs out of the trunk to free up some room, but I was ready for a truck. After the Blizzard of 2006, I didn't want to get snowed in for days at a time. Also, the kids and I got Winter Park/Copper Ski passes so I want to be able to take them skiing a lot this winter.

Disclaimer: I realize this is about the least green thing I could do and I'm not helping the environment at all. My only justification is 1) I had a very low carbon footprint the first 16 years of my life growing up at the cabin with no electricity or running water and 2) I don't really drive a whole lot. I averaged around 7,000 miles a year on my Honda - having only 36,000 miles after 5 years. With this one, I'll probably drive it a fair bit this winter and hardly drive it at all next summer and beyond. By then, hopefully the Bus is done and I can cruise around town in the sweetest ride I've ever owned.

As for the name "Snow White" - that was Abbie's idea. We'll see if it sticks.

Update: I forgot to mention one of my favorite features - a direct iPod hookup. I can navigate playlists from the stereo in the car. The display is only limited to 8 characters, but it's a lot better than broadcasting over FM.

Upgrading AppFuse to Spring 2.5

Last night, I spent a few minutes upgrading AppFuse to Spring 2.5 RC1. According to InfoQ, Spring 2.5 is a drop-in upgrade for Spring 2.0. However, if you're using Maven, it's not quite that easy. The good news is it is easy, you just need to change your pom.xml a bit. The steps I used to upgrade AppFuse are listed below:

• Add a repository for Spring's milestone releases:

  <repository>
      <id>spring-milestone</id>
      <url>http://s3.amazonaws.com/maven.springframework.org/milestone</url>
  </repository>
  

• Change artifactId of "spring-mock" to be "spring-test".
• Change version to be 2.5-rc1.

At this point, if you're using "spring" as your artifactId (instead of the smaller fine-grained dependencies), you'll likely get the following error in a Spring MVC application:

java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: 
org/springframework/web/servlet/handler/AbstractUrlHandlerMapping

This happens because Spring MVC is no longer included in the uber spring.jar. You'll need to add a dependency on "spring-webmvc" to solve this problem. Unfortunately, this JAR is dependent on the fine-grained modules, so you may have to modify your pom.xml to depend on the fine-grained modules - or exclude them all from spring-webmvc.

The good news is Spring has excluded all the invalid commons-logging dependencies for you so you don't have to anymore.

After getting all the dependencies straightened out - I ran the integration tests:

org.springframework.beans.NotReadablePropertyException: Invalid property 
'fileUpload' of bean class [org.appfuse.webapp.controller.FileUpload]: Bean 
property 'fileUpload' is not readable or has an invalid getter method: Does the 
return type of the getter match the parameter type of the setter?

Looking at uploadForm.jsp, I'm guessing the problem happens because of the following code:

<spring:bind path="fileUpload.file">
<input type="file" name="file" id="file" class="file medium" value="<c:out value="${status.value}"/>"/>
</spring:bind>

Confirmed - changing the "path" attribute to "file" fixes the problem. I also found out that setting the "value" on an <input type="file"> doesn't work, so wrapping the field with <spring:bind> doesn't make a whole lot of sense anyway.

To conclude, it doesn't look like the first release candidate of Spring 2.5 is exactly a drop-in upgrade for Spring 2.0, but it's pretty darn close. I'm sure by the time it's released, it will be. I'd encourage you to try 2.5 in your Spring-dependent projects to see if you find any issues.

Update: I was successfully able to migrate AppFuse from using the uber JAR to fine-grained JARs. However, I ran into a couple issues in the process. The first is that even though I'm including spring-aop in the appfuse-service module, it's not pulled in for the web frameworks (which depend on appfuse-service). Explicitly declaring spring-aop as a dependency for the appfuse-web module fixes this. Secondly, I had to modify my Acegi Security exclusions so it wouldn't include dependencies that no longer exist in 2.5.

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.acegisecurity</groupId>
    <artifactId>acegi-security-tiger</artifactId>
    <version>${acegi.version}</version>
    <exclusions>
        <exclusion>
            <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-dao</artifactId>
        </exclusion>
        <exclusion>
            <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-jdbc</artifactId>
        </exclusion>
        <exclusion>
            <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-remoting</artifactId>
        </exclusion>
        <exclusion>
            <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-support</artifactId>
        </exclusion>
    </exclusions>
</dependency>

Going to see Fake Steve Jobs Tonight

One of the perks of working at LinkedIn, and being out in Mountain View this week, is I get to attend a talk tonight where Guy Kawasaki interviews Fake Steve Jobs. It's my first trip to the Computer History Museum, so it should be a fun show. If you're not able to make it tonight, it looks like they'll be live streaming the event from the LinkedIn blog.

My only question is - do you think FSJ will act like Jobs or himself? I'm hoping for the former.

Update: That was an awesome event. Thanks to LinkedIn for hosting it and for Fake Steve for the great stories behind his journey.

Update 2: The LinkedIn Blog has videos from the event.

Happy Birthday Abbie!

5 years sure goes by quick when you're a parent. It's hard to believe that 1) I started blogging over 5 years ago and 2) Abbie turns 5 years old today. It's pretty cool to be able to look back at previous birthdays: the birthday, #1, #3 and #4. I don't know what happened for #2, but I sure feel bad for not blogging the event.

Congratulations kiddo - you've turned into a beautiful (and awfully smart) little girl.

P.S. Don't tell her I called her a "little" girl - she's obviously a "big" girl.

Roller and Struts 2 BOF at ApacheCon next week

Are you going to ApacheCon in Atlanta next week? If so, you might want to mark your calendar for the Roller + Struts 2 BOF on Wednesday night. It's from 8:30 - 9:30 in "Room 3" (whatever that means) and free beer will be sponsored by Atlassian. Thanks Guys!

Apparently, projectors aren't provided for BOFs, so we are in need of a projector to do a small presentation. If you happen to have a "projector connection" in Atlanta next week, please let me know.

Google Code for Educators

Google Code for Educators looks like some really great stuff from Google.

This website provides teaching materials created especially for CS educators looking to enhance their courses with some of the most current computing technologies and paradigms. We know that between teaching, doing research and advising students, CS educators have little time to stay on top of the most recent trends. This website is meant to help you do just that.

In the Tutorials area, you will find a set of online tutorials to which you can point students to learn basic concepts in important new technologies, or if you need a refresher.

In the Sample Course Content area, you will find materials such as lecture slides, readings, problem sets and projects that you can download to use in your own course. All these materials are distributed under a Creative Commons license, so you are free to use and modify these materials according to the terms of the license. This area includes sample course content developed by CS Faculty from various universities and Google engineers.

In the Video Lectures area, you will find a set of video-taped lectures from Google Video on our technology areas. These videos are great opportunities for students and faculty to hear directly from some of the current pioneers in high-tech.

In the Tools section you will find a set of tools and resources to help you get started with the material highlighted on the site. This area includes tools developed by Google engineers, as well as links to external resources.

My Upgrade to Leopard

By now, you've seen many stories about upgrading to Leopard. Here's mine.

In the past, I would've slapped the DVD in, selected upgrade and prayed for the best. Now I'm older and (apparently) wiser. First, I cloned my hard drive with SuperDuper!. Then I attempted to upgrade. I started the process on Saturday morning and didn't check it until Saturday afternoon. At that point, I was greeted with the lovely blue screen of death. I didn't even bother to look up the problem - instead opting for the clean install.

The next time I checked (Sunday evening), the installation was completed. I registered, clicked through some stuff and started copying files from my backup drive. On Sunday night, I closed the lid on my laptop and haven't used it since. I guess new operating systems don't excite me as much as they used to. Then again, I do have two MacBooks, so I don't really need the Leoparded one.

It could be that I'm burned out on technology - or it could be the Rockies and Broncos performance this past weekend has got me bummed. Who knows - the good news is there's lot of trick-or-treating to be done in the next couple of days and I'm sure to cheer up with the kids around.

Xebia Web Framework Contest

I found an interesting blog post today about a contest (English translation) a French company (Xebia) had with some Java web frameworks.

Overall, I think it's a good summary of the strengths and weaknesses of the various frameworks.