Which framework would be the best ?

[Mike kitbag]

I am extremely novice to the field, i have some knowledge of JSP and servlets .
there are hundreds of frames works out there, and not enough time to learn them all.
i wish to build a site that has mostly read operations from a DB
very few writes, will look decent and have some ajax capability's
and can later become a more professional site.
The question is : can any one suggest a good Frame work for me ?

Thank you.

[Tejas Jain]

I would suggest you go with Struts+POJO+JPA (If you only have very few entities in DB, JDBC should be fine).

If you want to build RIA, use Struts2+POJO+JPA. Or just use Flex + Java WebServices (Servlet+JDBC).

Since your application is mostly read-only, you should avoid heavy frameworks. Remember simplicity is beautiful.

I understand there just too many Java/JEE frameworks out there to select. Some of them
just do not have real substance. Others may have different options.

[Hussein Baghdadi]

I vote for Grails.
Rapid development, scaffolding, easy to customize, a lot of plugins.

[Mark Spritzler]

I vote for

Grails
Stripes
Spring MVC
Spring Web Flow
JBoss Seam
JSF and xhtml

and Bear's FrontMan

Mark

[Mike kitbag]

Thank you for the replies,

I was also advised by friends to use:
ZK + JSF + JPA
or
IceFaces + JSF + JPA

[Hussein Baghdadi]

All what I can say is stay away from JSF.
Don't say I didn't told you :XD:

[Mark Spritzler]

John Todd wrote:All what I can say is stay away from JSF.
Don't say I didn't told you :XD:

John, you can't make a blanket statement like that without explaining yourself.

For me JSF is my first choice. It seems so much easier for me to develop, because when it comes to UIs I always think in terms of Events, and JSF follows that model nicely. It is also a standard, so that I know that I can find people to code it, and that there is a standards body behind it. There are also some great JSF tag libraries, like Richfaces that makes some complex stuff, so much easier.

Mark

[Bear Bibeault]

My dislike of JSF is detailed many times elsewhere. Summarized by:

[Jimmy Clark]

The Java Server Faces (JSF) API/Framework is extremely poorly designed and should only be learned in dire circumstances, e.g. someone is pressing a loading firearm into your temple.

As for good frameworks for your needs, Hibernate is Great!

[Tejas Jain]

Bear Bibeault wrote:My dislike of JSF is detailed many times elsewhere. Summarized by:

I saw this carton somewhere sometimes ago when someone made some comments on Spring frameworks.

I like it because it points out a common problem our Java community is facing.

[Frank Silbermann]

Mark Spritzler wrote:

John Todd wrote:All what I can say is stay away from JSF.
Don't say I didn't told you :XD:

For me JSF is my first choice. It seems so much easier for me to develop, because when it comes to UIs I always think in terms of Events, and JSF follows that model nicely. It is also a standard, so that I know that I can find people to code it, and that there is a standards body behind it. There are also some great JSF tag libraries, like Richfaces that makes some complex stuff, so much easier.

Mark

If you want an event-based framework with stateful components, I would suggest Wicket or Tapestry. But anyone you hire will probably have to be trained.

[Matthew Carr-Smith]

I would go with Spring, Spring JdbcTemplate, SpringMVC and JSP.

Spring - because AOP is so important these days, as a novice you need to learn this eventually. May as well start now.
JdbcTemplate - Because even though you eventually want to learn about ORM and use something like Hibernate, right now it's just one more framework to learn. JdbcTemplate is pretty easy/simple to use, assuming you know SQL.
SpringMVC - because it's very straight forward and doesn't get in your way, plus is has some nice advanced features (injectors!) that are fun and useful.
JSP - It's hideous, but you're pretty certain not to run into something you can't do with it, unlike some templating frameworks (e.g. velocity, tapestry, etc)

The bottom line is that Spring AOC is to useful not use and for the rest... K.I.S.S.

[Ulf Dittmer]

The important thing to keep in mind is that there is rarely "the best" for anything. Much depends upon your circumstances, about which we know nothing. So take whatever you find mentioned here and elsewhere under advisement, but make sure that the advice fits your situation.

[Bear Bibeault]

Matthew Carr-Smith wrote:JSP - It's hideous, but you're pretty certain not to run into something you can't do with it, unlike some templating frameworks (e.g. velocity, tapestry, etc)

I'd point out that any hideousness can be easily avoided by adhering to modern best-practices and using JSP 2.0 as pure view templates the way that they are intended. People who are still writing JSPs like it was 2001 (sadly, still too many as evidenced by questions posted in the JSP forum) can be swamped by hideousness indeed.

[Gregg Bolinger]

These threads are pointless.

[Mike kitbag]

Ulf Dittmer wrote:The important thing to keep in mind is that there is rarely "the best" for anything. Much depends upon your circumstances, about which we know nothing. So take whatever you find mentioned here and elsewhere under advisement, but make sure that the advice fits your situation.

I will try to clarify my needs:

The idea of the site is to display content of a store and to keep customer information
no purchases are made via site. only information stored on DB is user information.
The site needs to look decent, and later on might be enhanced to accommodate other stores.

I want the site to have Ajax capability's.
I want the site look decent enough for a basic presentation in front of the store owner
(RIA)

Currently we are a small group of 3 working on it.

if there are any more details needed please tell me,
Thank you.

[Hussein Baghdadi]

Mark Spritzler wrote:

John Todd wrote:All what I can say is stay away from JSF.
Don't say I didn't told you :XD:

John, you can't make a blanket statement like that without explaining yourself.

For me JSF is my first choice. It seems so much easier for me to develop, because when it comes to UIs I always think in terms of Events, and JSF follows that model nicely. It is also a standard, so that I know that I can find people to code it, and that there is a standards body behind it. There are also some great JSF tag libraries, like Richfaces that makes some complex stuff, so much easier.

Mark

Well, JSF is a terrible and poor designed framework, which it is why JBoss created Seam framework.
I'm not a web development Ninja but in the past I worked with JSF and the experiment is not lovely at all.
You like the event-component thing?
Go with Wicket.
Wicket is a simple and powerful framework, well designed and lead by the community and personally I think Wicket should be the standard framework of JEE.
My favorite frameworks these days:
Wicket, Grails, GWT and Django
My opinion of course

[Gregg Bolinger]

John Todd wrote:My opinion of course

Which is what makes these threads so pointless. Everyone has an opinion on the "best framework" and everyone is both right and wrong at the same time.

[Gregg Bolinger]

Mike kitbag wrote:

Ulf Dittmer wrote:The important thing to keep in mind is that there is rarely "the best" for anything. Much depends upon your circumstances, about which we know nothing. So take whatever you find mentioned here and elsewhere under advisement, but make sure that the advice fits your situation.

I will try to clarify my needs:

The idea of the site is to display content of a store and to keep customer information
no purchases are made via site. only information stored on DB is user information.
The site needs to look decent, and later on might be enhanced to accommodate other stores.

I want the site to have Ajax capability's.
I want the site look decent enough for a basic presentation in front of the store owner
(RIA)

Currently we are a small group of 3 working on it.

if there are any more details needed please tell me,
Thank you.

Clarifying your needs won't help because this thread is based on opinions and rarely are they unbiased. Any framework can do what you want based on your needs. Some will make it harder than others, maybe. But that is still an opinion. Look, if I know Wicket like the back of my hand (which I don't, just an example) and I think Wicket does everything I need it to do (which I don't) then why would I ever choose or recommend anything different? You see the problem here, right?

Someone could come into this thread and recommend not using a framework at all and their answer is just as valid as the guy telling you to use JSF. Why? Because for him, that *might* be the best. So he's going to tell everyone else its the best.

[Hussein Baghdadi]

Well Mike, if I were you, I would go with Grails as I told you previously.

[Dan Evans]

I would recommends the Jt Pattern Oriented framework
http://freedom.lunarpages.com/JtPortal
http://freedom.lunarpages.com/Jt

[Rajah Nagur]

Mike, you have made a very broad statement "good Frame work". What is good for somebody else might not be good for you and your team. Also what do you mean by "good"; easier to learn, support for ajax, higher productivity etc. It could mean any thing.

What I would suggest is, each one of you in your team evaluate one framework independently (probably with a rudimentary poc). Meet over a beer and close on one framework. Period.

Btw, if you ask me - go with Struts2 - one of finest piece of software written. But again, that is my opinion.

And, regarding JSF, whenever somebody uses JSF - a fairy dies (on a lighter note).
It is not straightforward & can confuse you sometimes.

[Mark Spritzler]

Rajah Nagur wrote:

And, regarding JSF, whenever somebody uses JSF - a fairy dies (on a lighter note).
It is not straightforward & can confuse you sometimes.

You can't use that line because they already used it years ago with Acegi Security. So only one piece of software can make fairies die. ;)

Mark

[suresh senapathi]

Matthew Carr-Smith wrote:I would go with Spring, Spring JdbcTemplate, SpringMVC and JSP.

Spring - because AOP is so important these days, as a novice you need to learn this eventually. May as well start now.
JdbcTemplate - Because even though you eventually want to learn about ORM and use something like Hibernate, right now it's just one more framework to learn. JdbcTemplate is pretty easy/simple to use, assuming you know SQL.
SpringMVC - because it's very straight forward and doesn't get in your way, plus is has some nice advanced features (injectors!) that are fun and useful.
JSP - It's hideous, but you're pretty certain not to run into something you can't do with it, unlike some templating frameworks (e.g. velocity, tapestry, etc)

The bottom line is that Spring AOC is to useful not use and for the rest.
Any one please is this suggestable?

[Ran Pleasant]

Mark Spritzler wrote:So only one piece of software can make fairies die. ;)Mark

I can prove you totally wrong with one word: "Microsoft".
They kill fairies by the thousands!