Hi, nairalanders, I'll really love personal opinions, with reasons as much as possible, on the most developer friendly/productive java web framework

Why dont u try Struts from Apache?

Don't go near Struts

Spring is not a bad way to go, it seems to have bindings to work with everything.

It's a definitely a good way to develop web apps

candylips:

Don't go near Struts

LOL. Isn't Struts "Programmer Friendly"? At least you as a programmer get a lot of control and do a lot of work. Struts2 is lovely in my opinion.

If the original poster wants something with less programming (not sure what he meant by programmer friendly), then he should try Liferay, which is basically a Content Management System (CMS) based on Java and customizable using Java of course.

^^ i haven't done gui stuff in a while but many yrs ago when i had to deal with Struts it was horrible

Apparently you never had to deal with servlet/JSP-only, before the advent of Struts and friends. Before Struts came along, people had to basically develop their own mini framework (unsurprisingly many bore uncanny resemblance to Struts since they were based on the same design philosophy). Struts solidified out of this "view component magma" and I must say it was like Heaven when I started using it (back in 2002).

Developing your own mini-framework isn't a bad idea, really.
Generic frameworks tend to fail really hard when you try to use them
for anything the original developer didn't anticipate. I.e. anything innovative.

Not if the generic framework handles all the stuff you have been developing your mini framework for, plus more.

Mini frameworks are cool if the project team is small and the requirements crystal clear. The problem is, how many people know the right way to use your mini framework? So you end up with a few high priests without whom nothing can be done on the app ,

The funny thing is you'd feel rotten when you see a standard framework that does what your mini framework does, and maybe better, all that time wasted

So lets not reinvent the wheel, you can still innovate without building everything from scratch.

Like i said before, Spring is a wonderful way to glue web apps together, it allows the use of Struts and many other frameworks.

@all
Thanks for the insightful responses.

I believe struts(1) is definitely not the way to go: too much xml configuration. Spring mvc has a high ranking to me now. I believe it has good web services support too. Anyway are there any Stripes, Wicket, Grails, JBoss Seam or Tapestry users in this parts.

Good IDE support, Eclipse et al, definitely would be a plus.

@candylips.
What is your alternative to Struts?

Actually, I believe struts is programmer friendly. All that xml configuration saves you on the long run. For dealing with the interaction between your view and controller, struts fits in very well. Of course, if you are using spring, it's MVC framework will also do well in that aspect.

I believe the key is convention over configuration

web frameworks are getting simpler by the day

i played around with spring roa and grails a while back and was amazed at how simple web developement in java has now become.

i rememeber the evil days of Structs 1.0

Is this still the case?

First encounter with struts is not always funny. There is a new Struts, struts2 with annotations making things a little easier(for those that hate xml, although there is a limit to the use of anotations, some cases will require only xml to configure it properly.), even at that you have to b patient with it. Personally i think is not programmer friendly when compared with JSF, but to me it gives lots of control JSF will not give you.

I use both JSF and struts2, i find JSF very friendly, but when it gets really serious i jump to struts2, the infrastructure controller is awesome.
The summary is JSF:40% struts2:60%.

struts is not smiling at all, struts2 is better and once u get the flow, you will be surprised at amazing things it can help you achieve. Everything still depends on the kind project you designing. if you are doing a project that requires alot of navigation struts2 is the best. Job wise most companies still demands the knowledge of both, although JSF still gets the upper hand. The good thing about both of them is that they are all MVC pattern oriented.