<b>Is there a future for MVC architecture? And is it near the end of life of ...

Terrence Miao - 2012-04-15 00:04:39+1000 - Updated: 2012-04-15 07:20:26+1000

Is there a future for MVC architecture? And is it near the end of life of Struts?

During last few days I bumped from gardening hobby into JSF (JavaServer Faces), actually it's JSF 2. Attracting to my attention is not because of JSF is Oracle backed, propagandaed and carpet bombed, but also because JSF becomes everyone's darling, again!

Remember I had a discussion with people's favourite Italian boy Dino Baetano about JSF, while we concluded that poor performance in the early implementation of JSF (JSF 1) kill a lot enthusiastic Java developers. This is almost announce a death penalty to JSF. Time fly till I come across this article wrote in 2005 on based on JSF 1, giving architectural overview of JSF, overturn the "bias and discrimination" I had to JSF before. Interesting enough, there is comparison of MVC 2 architecture, represented by Struts vs. event driven, component development, represented by JSF.

Richard Hightower, author of this article, claims against Struts is that it can feel more procedural than object-oriented, and doesn't offer a component model from the core package. Struts makes the mistake of separating behaviour and state, which leaves many Java developers feeling like they're programming COBOL!

This is a serious allegation.

MVC 1 architecture was a small revolution in OO world when it came out of the corner. But it never helps reducing the tedious work for developers. Not ever getting better, MVC 2 model is still a heavy approach. So it's not strange that Ruby on Rails and Google Web Toolkit (GWT) come out as alternative solutions for web applications.

Back to JSF 2, which has harvested all the evolutionary fruits from JEE 6, Spring, Ruby, is getting up to another level. For example:

• Fine-grained event driven development and events are easily tied to server-side code
• Component based development. Reusable components enforce Don't Repeat Yourself (DRY) principle
• Annotation and IoC support simplifies codes and makes them less
• Enforces Convention over Configuration (CoC) principle
• Controller classes aren't tied to JSF at all, making them easier to test
• The statefulness of the components is provided through the JSF framework. On the contrary, maybe it's backdrop for poor response from application.

Oh man, is it time we shall give another look of JSF?

JSF for nonbelievers: Clearing the FUD about JSF

Dean Budd - 2012-04-16 11:16:50+1000 - Updated: 2012-04-16 11:17:36+1000

Forget server-side generated dynamic content. It's all being pushed back onto the Browser.

Terrence Miao - 2012-04-16 11:30:36+1000

HTML5 is the most dramatic step in the evolution of web standards. The Browser is now the ultimate Rich Client. The fat "boy" client is back.

Martin Paulo - 2012-04-16 11:40:55+1000

I'm not sure that I would compare JSF to Rails. Wouldn't Wicket be a better comparison? But I'm with Dean and Terrence. JSF is last years server side solution. Look rather to things like meteor (http://www.meteor.com/) for the future...

Kieran Simpson - 2012-04-16 11:53:31+1000

Firstly TRA is from 2005 - that's old

Secondly, I think MVC will be around for a long time, because something has to serve up the pages that's hosting your client side code. What get's done on the server/client might change, but MVC will live on.

Dean Budd - 2012-04-16 13:54:09+1000 - Updated: 2012-04-16 13:55:48+1000

MVC isn't a framework but a simple principle to keep your Business Model and that which renders the Business Model separate. It'll be around for as long as people have sense to follow this design principle.

Pandiarajan Inbam - 2012-04-16 22:58:09+1000

JSF is best for front end, ( Validation, beanpopulation, error massage) and for small backend project

Terrence Miao - 2012-04-17 00:08:38+1000 - Updated: 2012-04-17 00:08:55+1000

+Martin Paulo Big thumb up on Meteor. Very creative and deep thinking!

In 2012, the "dumb terminal" style of application is long gone, and instead we have a sea of smart clients: the JavaScript applications that run in our web browsers, and the native applications that run on our phones or tablets. They talk to an ever-growing array of scalable, distributed cloud services, such as Facebook Connect (authentication), Google Maps (location awareness), Amazon S3 (storage), and whatever custom services a particular app may need to run in the cloud due to security or persistence considerations.

Meteor is a new application platform for this new era. It is built around Smart Packages: little bundles of code that can run on a client, inside a cloud service, or both, and that can manage their lifetime inside the modern distributed environment.

Wow!