Pros and Cons of Various Java Web Presentation Layer Technologies

Question

I\'m currently working on a web app that makes heavy use of JSF and IceFaces. We\'ve had some discussions of moving to another presentation layer, and I thought I\'d take th

Answer 1

The biggest question I'd ask is why are you changing presentation layer? That's a very expensive cost and I can see the benefits of one technology outweighing the others by as much as the cost to change...

Answer 2

I'd wonder if you a have a service layer that's distinct from the web client, something that the web controllers simply invoke to get their work done.

If you do, the choice of web UI technology can be decoupled from the back end. If it's exposed as a contract first web service, you can have different apps share it. As long as your clients can send and receive XML they can interact with your services. Want to switch to Flex? No worries - point it at the service and render the XML response.