A Short Java Blurb with a Few JSF Links
So Java is trying to keep up with the times in spite of the engineered heat from Sun. There are “artistic”-like things out there like Aerith—but this does not mean that web development for browsers is not left back in the 1990s. In fact, on Monday September 27, 2004, Craig McClanahan asks “Struts or JSF? Struts and JSF?” His online “webinar” is praised by the Java Posse.
But before we get back to JSF, we have to make our rounds round the other billion Web UI frameworks: Tapestry, Shale (based on JSF), Apache MyFaces (based on JSF) and billions of others (e.g. Struts Tiles)—a veritable jsfmatrix of freedom. And, of course, a .NET-centric guy like me has to learn the differences among JDK, SDK, JRE and JDK—and JDK. Even finding the correct downloads page on sun.com fills me with pathetic pride. This article is a bit honest: “Further, to confuse everyone, Sun’s marketing people refer to all Java versions 1.2+ as Java 2 and 1.5+ versions as Java 5. The JDK consists of a Java compiler, written in Java, and a run time interpreter for your particular platform.”
So when we get back to JSF, we might have the misfortune of following this errata-filled tutorial by Raghu Srinivasan, of Oracle Corporation, at eclipse.org. This may eventually lead to the Java Persistence API FAQ—no—the Jakarta Commons (which is an important find—even the inconvenient downloads page). And ultimately this is the goal: “Using JavaServer Faces Technology with AJAX”—okay that’s from 2005. Peter Wang wrote this in 2006: “Pump some AJAX into your JSF application” and this leads to Ajax4jsf—but then again (and again) Shale Remoting looks quite attractive (this is dramatized by Java BluePrints AJAX Components). And—suddenly—Janice J. Heiss asks, “A lot of people want to know: What’s the deal with Struts and JavaServer Faces (JSF), and Struts and Shale? A lot of uncertainty surrounds the topic. It is impossible to predict where it is all headed…” Really? No!
The coherent version of the beginnings of this journey is elsewhere. You might want to start with my latest Java Technology notes at SonghaySystem.com.