Which java web framework to learn? [closed]

Answer 1

Take a look at http://www.playframework.org/.

Answer 2

Good luck. The question you've asked is roughly akin to "I want a grilled roast-beef sandwich, made from chicken." The frameworks available in Java tend to be heavy on the configuration and a bit hard to learn.

That said, here are my suggestions:

1. MVC Based -- Spring MVC or JSF, neither of which is particularly easy to learn. I haven't used any other MVC web frameworks (Wicket, Tapestry, etc.), so someone else may have to weigh in here.
2. Minimal Configuration -- Your best bet is Spring MVC with annotations. But this is Java -- configuration hell is the name of the game.
3. Easy to use ORM -- I'm not sure what you're used to in other languages, but in Java ORMs don't come baked into the MVC framework. Your best bet for an easy-to-use ORM is JPA on top of Hibernate, particularly if you shell out the $60 US for MyEclipse. The JPA implementation in MyEclipse is alone more than worth the investment. It's not perfect, just better than anything else I've seen.
4. Have Decent Session Management -- Take your pick. Since the late 90s, J2EE containers have been managing more sessions than you'll likely ever need.
5. Easy to Pickup -- Nothing that comes to mind. As easy as Java is as a language, the web tools associated with it tend to be what rough up newbies the most. Learn JSPs and stay away from JSF, as it has an eccentric lifecycle that tends to hide errors that you really want to know about.

Good luck!

Edit: I've never used Grails, but I have to concur with Brian and Nathan in saying that it looks like the best fit for what you're looking for.

Answer 3

Since you said you wanted a "Java" web framework, I recommend either Wicket, GWT or RAP.

Wicket is a very simple, "bare metal" framework where all logic is in Java (rather than being split between Java and JSP as in Struts, JSF or other such frameworks). It is also component oriented, which means you can reuse the same GUI component (be it simple or composite) in different pages. Finally, Wicket allows to use AJAX, while still not requiring your whole page to be written in Javascript (as extjs requires, for example)

GWT and RAP are both "java to javascript compilers". You write your code in regular Java, including the logic for interaction on the client side (responding to clicks, drags, etc.) and the framework compiles the code to javascript that runs on the client and interacts with the server when needed. GWT (from google) is based on the swing model, while RAP (from eclipse) is based on Eclipse's RCP model (which is much richer than swing).

The main difference between Wicket and GWT/RAP is that wicket is more oriented towards writing "old school" sites (for example, stackoverflow is old school - pages, forms, with a bit of ajax), while GWT/RAP are for writing RIA applications (where there's many widgets with complex interaction).

Finally, for "out of the box" alternatives, check out extjs, cappucino and maybe java web start

Answer 4

Stripes is without a doubt the best and easiest java framework I've ever had the pleasure of using. To address each of your reqs:

Be MVC based.

MVC is sort-of in the eye of the beholder--at least, this depends heavily on how you design your code structure. But yes, it's quite simple to use an MVC project structure with Stripes.

Have minimal if any configuration

This is where Stripes shines. To get up and running you need only to put a few lines in your web.xml. Everything else is automagically wired-up. The beauty of Stripes is that everything can be easily overridden if you so desire.

Have an easy to use ORM

Stripernate is a popular extension to the framework that, again, works automagically.

Have decent session management

As simple as a @Session annotation on the field. Or you can persist the entire ActionBean in the session if you want. Stripes has built-in support for Wizards, so you don't have to concern yourself about preserving state across requests.

Be easy to pickup

This is Stripes' strongest suit. Not to mention, the Wiki is incredibly well-documented.

In addition, Stripes has built-in support for layout templates, localization, AJAX, and a bunch of other stuff. And unlike some frameworks that require dozens of gigantic JARs (cough... Tapestry), the entire framework is a single JAR that weighs in at less than 500 KB.

Answer 5

You can try out Wicket and tapestry. These are more capable frameworks. Both are built on different set of ideas.

Answer 6

How about Hamlets?

Hamlets (previously known as IBM Servlet-based Content Creation Framework) is an open source system for generating dynamic web-pages developed by René Pawlitzek at IBM. A Hamlet is a servlet extension that reads XHTML template files containing presentation using SAX (the Simple API for XML) and dynamically adds content on the fly to those places in the template which are marked with special tags and IDs using a small set of callback functions. A template compiler can be used to accelerate Hamlets.

Hamlets provide an easy-to-use, easy-to-understand, lightweight, small-footprint, servlet-based content creation framework that facilitates the development of Web-based applications. The Hamlets framework not only supports but also enforces the complete separation of content and presentation. It is the result of a radical software simplification effort.